


Winds of Change 2

by 21citrouilles



Series: Winds of Change [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:18:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21citrouilles/pseuds/21citrouilles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story , while different, is related to Winds of Change and is part of a series.</p><p>For the second part of this tale, in another AU, Sandor Clegane has missed the first window of opportunity to change his destiny and another fork opens on his path, sometimes after the Blackwater battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Sansa**

 

The Blackwater Battle had been won, as Dontos had told me on the following morning. Lord Tywin Lannister had the right wing, Randyll Tarly commanding the center and Mace Tyrell the left; but it was the vanguard led by Lord Renly which had won the fight. The bells were tolling joyfully in the air. The sky had returned to its normal blue hue, and the sun was shining.

I had been huddling all night long on the floor, wrapped in the Hound’s white cloak, all bloody and smoky from the battle. He had wrenched it away and left it on the floor. After he had left, I thought I had heard some tumult in the hall; footsteps running, sounds of blades clashing mixed with grunts and shouts. I hadn’t dared to move at all, and then it was silent, until the bells started to ring.

Now life seems to have returned to peace, with Stannis having lost the battle and retreated to recoup. Queen Cersey had the engagement between Joffrey and I broken and another betrothal made between Joffrey and Margery Tyrell; figuring that this alliance would be more profitable now for them. I had met Margery and she had invited me several times to have tea and cakes with her aunt and cousins, and I had enjoyed these events. Surprisingly, she had been very friendly with me, and it had given me the courage to apprise her of how Joffrey could be cruel. She hadn’t been worried about this, as her brother ser Loras Tyrell was part of the Kingsguard now and she would have him watch over her day and night. There was even talk that I could be betrothed to her older brother Willas. I had heard that he was a scholar, gentle and kind, and it had raised hopes again for me, that I could be finally safe far away in Highgarden, with a kind husband.

 _I missed the Hound’s presence though. Sandor Clegane had come in the night of Blackwater’s battle to take me away from the city, but I had refused. Sometimes I lay awake at night wondering if it had been wise._ But how could I have done otherwise? He’d terrified me in the state he had been – and I had thought myself safer in my stone tower from the battle, the fires, the smoke and spreading death. And I thought that I had a better way of escaping than this one...

I have not seen him since then. He must have left as he had said he would, but nobody has spoken of his disappearance or even of his death. Why? It seems to me the vanishing of the king’s sworn shield and a member of the kingsguard would be enough to generate a lot of talk and speculation, even a search. But I have heard nothing, either at court, from Dontos and others. They all act as if nothing unusual had happened.

On that night, I’m ascending the Serpentine to go to the godswood for a meeting with Dontos. _Hopefully my better way of escaping..._ He has assured me time and time again that he’s working on the escape; that a ship will stand at the ready on the night of Joffrey’s wedding, but I’ve been having serious doubts about it ever happening. I have to admit that as much as I had wanted him to be my Florian, _he is not._ He is weak and drunk most of the time, trying to grope me and give me one of his slobbery kisses, and I find it harder to keep up the pretense of the knight and his damsel.

I’m going up the stairs slowly and lightly as I can as to make no noise, when suddenly, two hard hands grasp my arms from behind, immobilising me on the stair. _I know very well the feel of these hands..._ I try to struggle but their grasp is like iron, and then I hear a familiar raspy voice.

“Where do you think you’re going, little bird? Shouldn’t you be in your chambers this late at night?”

He turns me around effortlessly to face him, and releases my arms from his hold. He’s standing on the stair just below mine, and we’re almost of a height. I’m trembling from head to toes from the shock, my heart pounding fast in my chest like a hammer. I feel that my eyes have gotten huge and round, unblinking as they stare at him in astonishment.  _It is him,_ same as always with his terribly scarred face and a smirk on his hard lips. _No phantom..._ It is too much, being this close to him and the surprise. I stifle a scream with my hand and run up the stairs as fast as I can, wanting to escape in the godswood. But even before I can reach the gate, he’s standing in front of it, blocking the access, and I retreat from him until I’m foolishly backed up against the wall, breathing rapidly.

He walks toward me with his slow, confident footsteps until he’s close to me again.

“And I had thought that you would be glad to see me, thinking that maybe you had missed your dog!”

He’s laughing bitterly and his eyes have grown angry.

“But...”I’m sputtering in my shock, my voice thin. “I thought that you had left! What are you doing here?”

“I had meant to get away, as you know, but I was badly wounded and was found unconscious. Took me that long to recuperate. Want to see?”

Before I can answer, he lifts off both his mail and tunic from his right side, showing his flat and muscled middle to my sight. He turns around so I can see better, and I spy a vicious looking scar slightly above his waist. It is as long as my middle finger and puckered, with the jagged line of it still pink. The sight of it is terrible, and I feel a constriction in my chest and start to cry.

He lets the tunic and mail fall back, snorting in contempt at my reaction.

“Not pretty enough for you? Still another scar to frighten you.”

“No, it’s not what you think.” I’m trying to regain my composure back, wiping my tears and sniffling a bit. “It made me sad that you got hurt like this.”

He raises his eyebrows sceptically.

“Really? I’m in no mood for your pretty lies.”

I try to ignore his scowl. “Does it hurt?”

He sighs exasperatedly, and I feel like an idiot again. “Of course it hurts, you little fool. But it’s not as bad as it looks. It was a shallow cut, but it got infected; no wonder, from whose blade it came from.”

“But you were not wounded like this when ... you came in my chambers.” Just mentioning this makes me tremble again, and I have to avert my gaze as I still feel raw and vulnerable from the memory, and I’m too afraid to see a smirk or a knowing gaze as he hears me. But surprisingly, his voice has turned softer, and when I have the courage to look up at him again, I spy something like - regret, sadness? -  In his eyes.

“No, it happened after I left your chamber.”

Then it takes shape in my mind.

“The noise that I heard... the scuffle? It was you, with others?”

He smiles mirthlessly. “The little bird heard it then. Others saw me leaving your room, Meryn and Boros to be exact. They thought that I had had my fun with you, and wanted to have their turn too. I disagreed, so there was a _scuffle,_ as you said. Usually, I would have sent them off easily, but being exhausted and very drunk, I was quite slow. I had already taken care of Boros. Meryn managed to cut me before I cut off his head. Then nothing, until I woke in a bed with the healer standing over me.”

This starts my heart hammering again, and I feel myself sway on my feet until the Hound steadies me with his hands on my shoulders. I put my arms protectively around me and start pacing.

“I... can’t believe this! The knights were fighting in the battle, not preying on us! This is impossible!”

He stops me by grabbing my arms again, flattening me against the wall. He has lowered his head near mine, his face a mask of fury. I can see his mouth twitch repeatedly.

“You little innocent, still believing in these fucking songs, these knights! What do you think happens in a battle, especially in one that’s turning into defeat? The men get blood lust and crazy, not caring about anything anymore except survival. Some had already started to pilfer the Keep, while others were roaming around, trying to find women to fuck them bloody. But they don’t tell of this in your beloved songs.”

“Stop this! You’re hurting me, Hound!”

For once, this seems to reach him, and he removes his hands, while still staying close to me. I still don’t want to accept what he has said, and I reply hotly:”But it was told that ser Meryn and ser Boros had died bravely in battle! So what you said is untrue.”

“Oh, you believe that? Leaders don’t want that kind of thing to be known, so they covered it with a nice lie. _That’s how the songs are made._ But Queen Cersei, she knows about these things. Why do you think she gathered all women together? Not only from the enemy, but from her own men.”

As much as I don’t want to believe him, the Hound has never lied to me, and I feel a great hurt again in my chest and feel tears slide silently on my face, much to my shame. The destruction of my world and what I believed in never stops, and I wonder desperately if I can bear any more of it.

The Hound brings out a rough handkerchief from one of his pockets and dabs delicately at my face while I try to stop my sniffling. Why is he always there when I hurt the most?

“Get it into your head that the world is not like you had imagined it to be and you’ll suffer less from it.”

Hid gentle touch has calmed my sorrow, and while his words are gruff, I have felt an undertone of caring behind them. _Maybe he’s not so bad after all._ I take a deep breath and look up at him.

“I thank you, my lord, for saving me from them, and I am sorry about the wound that you got for it.”

“Too late for that!” he growls, and I jump again. “You should have said it before, instead of not believing me. I don’t need your false gratitude.”

“But...”

I don’t have time to say more as he advances on me. He’s so close now that my gaze is resting on his armor, shutting my view of everything else around me. He has pinned me against the wall, and to my consternation, his face has gotten very close to mine, and this troubles me so that I turn my head sharply to the side.

“Still unable to look at me in the face, can you?” he whispers harshly.

“No! I’m scared! What you’re doing is not proper.”

He gives a great bark of laughter, and I feel his hot breath on my face. “Not proper! What did you expect from me then? _Look at me now._ ”

As much as I don’t want to, I do as I’m bid, and find his angry gaze again transfixed on me.

“If you treated me nicer, _sweeter,_ maybe you would not find me so scary then.”

He sighs like he’s very tired suddenly, grimacing. He retreats from me, and it gives me a chance to breathe normally again. His expression has become closed off and withdrawn.

“Come now, I’ll escort you to your chamber. You never know when another rat will decide to come out of its hole.”

We go down the stairs and I enter through a doorway that he opens for me, following behind and soon striding beside me. He seems to be brooding and I say nothing either, being too drained to think of something to fill the silence. All of what happened seems so unreal, after I had been sure that I would never see him again. I almost feel like I am in a trance, until the familiar sight of my chamber’s door snaps me back to reality again. Before I have the chance of opening it, his hand grabs the door knob, keeping it shut, and I feel his insistent gaze on me, although I refuse to meet it.

“Regardless of how crazed I was on the night of the battle, I spared you. Remember that.”

And with that, he’s gone, his heavy footsteps receding further in the hall. I hurriedly open my door and latch it as soon as possible behind me. As I undress and put on my nightdress, I find that I’m shaking again, although a lot of it is cause by anger, not only fear. I’m surprised by this, as this is an unusual feeling for me, and I go lay down on my bed, pulling the covers protectively around me, feeling my jaw hardening from my inner tensions.

I can’t believe what he just said... He thought that he had spared me! It wasn’t important to him that he had scared me to death, no... If he thought that I would be grateful that he hadn’t raped and killed me, then he would have to wait for centuries! It really showed what a brute he was.

I feel really foolish now that I had felt that I had missed his presence, lying in this very bed, the bed that he had been in! I must have become unhinged to have had these feelings. I must really be stupid like the queen and Joffrey keep telling me. What had I missed about him? It was true that he had often been helpful to me and had saved me from harm, but most of the time, when I would encounter him alone, he would be awful to me, being so angry and hurtful. That wasn’t worth it. Tonight has been another example of this.

Not accepting my thanks once again... But then a sense of unease, of shame rises up in me. He was right... I hadn’t felt grateful at all, just being angry at these horrible tales he was telling me, and when I couldn’t deny him the truth of it anymore, I had thrown  my insincere thanks at him, because I had felt guilty that he’s been wounded in trying to save me from the knights. But I had felt resentful of what he had told me, as I had often felt before, because I thought that he and what his words expressed were awful. 

But as I reflect on it, I have to admit while is words are hard, they only reflect the truth of our world, of what is behind contrived smiles, false piety, even known history. Were the songs created to hide all of this or to ask for a higher standard that most are unable to reach? Did he persist in saying all of this to me so I would see the world through clearer eyes, better able to defend myself and survive in it? The events and his words have indeed evaporated the mists of my childhood dreams and illusions, but what have I left now to look forward to? It’s so hard...

And I feel more confused than ever at the turn which my thoughts have taken me. I have always been eager to please, for people to think of me as a good person, and I’ve strived so much to be a real lady, following the rules slavishly, thinking that it would make me safe. That paved the way so easily for me to pretend and lie as a way to survive, to be kept in their good graces. I feel like I’ve been lost for a long time in a dream, and that in waking up, I don’t know myself anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sansa**

****

This has been the beginning of a more peaceful period of time for me. The Queen acts as if I don’t exist and the King, being occupied with his new betrothed, hardly gives me attention now. Because of this, I don’t get beaten anymore, and I feel relieved too that these two knights who were the ones to beat me are dead... I feel a secret pleasure at knowing what really happened to them, and that nobody at court suspects that I know. I don’t feel as stupid or as naive as I’d felt before. I’m left pretty much alone, except for the occasional invitations which Margery extends to me, and it feels nice to be in the company of women, except for the terrible Queen of Thorns. But even she behaves differently toward me now; she often looks at me with a speculative gleam in her eyes and doesn’t batter me with questions anymore.

I haven’t encountered the Hound in the halls or the godswood. I only have seen him at the court functions or following Joffrey, and when I do see him, his face looks impassive and he hardly glances at me; when he does, his gaze is neutral and doesn’t linger long. He has resumed his sworn shield duties, and I often wondered if he was well enough to start them. But then peace has returned to our realm; supplies and food have started to be carried by ships on the waterways, so the city has enough to eat again, calming the citizens. Everybody feels triumphant and relieved that the battle has been won; making new plans, new alliances, rebuilding, so in that quiet lull, there not much need for the Hound to have to defend his liege from danger.

Except for this encounter with him on the Serpentine, he seems to have changed since the battle, being more subdued. Every time that I catch myself worrying about him, I chide myself for what a fool I am to care about his state, but then this is my nature. Before the Blackwater battle, I remember that I had even prayed for him, for his soul to be gentled. What a fool I am!

On one afternoon, a bannerman is complaining about his daughter been attacked by his neighbor’s men, and the King listens with a bored expression on his face. Lord Tywin has been away for two days, so there has been no Hand to take care of this for him, and he has a hard time trying to conceal his intolerance, his indifference for matters pertaining to people whose concerns are so below his interests. _Like insects to him._

I see the Hound standing at the front of the dais as usual, and our gazes cross for a moment, his seeming like he doesn’t really see me. I turn my head; but an instinct keeps my gaze fixed on him from the corner of my eye and I spy him looking at me with the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Then I realise that he has been hiding his glances from me since the encounter, and for a reason I cannot explain it fills me with merriness. Not being used to this mood, I can’t help letting out giggles behind my hand, and the court turns completely silent at these sounds. I look up to see all eyes fixed on me in cold disapproval; most of all the eyes of the King. He lets the silence go on as long as it takes to make me afraid, _and I am._ What was I thinking of? Then he starts to speak in the soft tone of voice that always precedes a punishment.

“I would really like to know what you find so amusing about the fate of this poor young girl, _Lady Stark.”_

 _You hypocrite, you didn’t even care a second ago._ Somehow, this thought gives me courage.

“I don’t know why I laughed”, I reply in a little girl’s voice. “Your grace, you know how stupid I am, and I feel that I’m getting even more stupid every day, your Highness.’

This is not what Joffrey had expected, and I see first a look of astonishment spreading on his face, followed by a puzzled frown. Then he regains his composure.

“Then it would help the court if you remained silent, as to spare us more of your stupidity.”

“Please your grace, I meant no harm. If your grace would have it in him to forgive me, I would gladly submit to punishment.”

The Hound’s mouth has started to twitch at the King’s words, and now he’s erupting in growls, scowling at me.

“Stop this, girl!”

Joffreys crows triumphantly at this, a grin spreading on his lips, and then his face turns icy cold.

“Be warned of this, Lady Stark. Next time when you don’t behave in a respectful manner, I’ll have my dog beat you and the other beatings will seem like caresses after he’s through with you.”

Regardless of the Hound’s threatening stare boring into me, I know that he was warning me to stop riling the King, acting on my behalf, and I find it easy to ease back in my old frightened state.

“Oh no, please your grace! Not the Hound I beg of you!”

The Hound gives a short bark of laughter, and a lot of people chuckle in the court at my pleadings. This makes me realise even more how alone and defenceless I am here, and while it makes me feel desolate, I know that the Hound is doing his mummer’s farce. This gives me more strength, and I try to hide my pain and smoldering anger from everybody until the court has adjourned.

Then the peace has evaporated again and I feel uneasy. I regularly feel now this anger and have to be careful not to be foolhardy and put myself in danger. I remain silent, and start to feel disquieted when Margery doesn’t call me her sister anymore, cools toward me and stop inviting me to join her and her cousins in their circle. I’m afraid that it means that the proposal between me and Willas has been called off.

Then several days pass without Dontos meeting me in the godswood. That had never happened before, and I start to grow more apprehensive; that the offer of escape has been abandoned too. What will happen to me? My mother is still keeping Jaime as a hostage and no talks about an exchange have even been mentioned, so I feel even more desperate at what will be my fate. I know that it won’t continue on like this for long. I’m a pawn that has to be used again.

It doesn’t stop me from going to the godwoods each night at dusk. On the fifth night without having seen Dontos, I kneel down before a tree, thinking that this time the old gods will hear me, as I put my body, my mind and my soul into the words, becoming a prayer, like an intense shout that is sent through its maw and into the heavens. _Please, please hear me! I’m desperate, nobody could be this helpless, I can’t take it anymore, help me, GRANT MY WISH!_

I feel that a tremendous energy has left me, and the release of it calms me down. I suddenly hear footsteps in the quiet and get up hurriedly from my knees, a surge of hope rising in me. But when I turn around to see who has entered the godswood, I spy Sandor Clegane, swaggering with a mocking look on his face as he approaches me.

“Not the one you were waiting for, is it?”

His unexpected appearance flusters me, and I reply coldly. “I was not waiting for anybody, Hound. I was trying to pray, and now you’ve broken my peace! I’m going to leave now. Go away.”

“In seven hells I will. Come sit here. Now.”

This is the last thing that I want to do, and while I try to escape him, he grabs my wrist and tugs at my arm, forcing me to follow him to the bench. I’m getting really nervous now, as I fear that Dontos could appear any moment and all will be lost because the Hound persists in staying here. I sit beside him, on the good side of his face but as far away from him as possible so he won’t feel my trembling, and look down at the ground.

“So, who is it that you’re meeting there regularly? Look at me.”

I meet his gaze while I try to look as expressionless as possible, clasping my hands together.

“Hound,” I say in a tone of voice as firm as possible, “if you continue to follow me, I’ll tell the Queen.”

He snorts in derision. “Tell her then. I don’t fucking care. But you won’t like it when I’ll tell her that you meet someone here regularly, _a man._ ”

My heart sinks in consternation. Don’t I have anything to defend myself with? But I have to keep my resolve.  “Nobody, I told you, I come here to pray.”

Now his eyes have turned dark with anger and made his mouth surly, revealing his teeth.

“Don’t lie to me”, he hisses.

I raise my chin defiantly. “I’ll do whatever and say whatever I please! I don’t owe you anything!” _Now, what has gotten into me? He’ll kill me!_

Contrary to my expectations, his face clears and he chuckles in appreciation.

“The little bird is growing claws. Be careful though. You’ve put yourself in danger at court on the other day. I heard the mockery behind your words. Now, you’ve put me in a difficult situation, as next time Joff wants to punish you, I’ll be the one who’ll have to do it.” His face has turned somber from the thought of it.

“I didn’t put you in any situation,” I say sullenly. “It’s you who spoke.”

He growls. “I didn’t have time to think of something better to say. I’ll find a good reason not to do it if he asks me to strike you. Don’t fret.”

There I have it finally, a real confirmation that he had been trying to help me for all these years. Surprisingly, it melts my resentment and fear of him. It has touched me deeply and I feel tears coming to my eyes from the warmth of it; that he really has cared, like I had sometimes thought that he did.

“Thank you very much. I appreciated it, and knew that you were not laughing at me like the others.”

He smiles at me, and I feel for the first time that it is a genuine one. It’s a rare moment of ease, of tentative trust between us. Then I’m reminded of the precarious situation that I’m in and look around nervously. Naturally, this doesn’t escape his attention, and his face turns dark again.

“Don’t think that you’ll distract me with your pretty courtesies. I have not forgotten why I came here, and I’ll spare you the questions, as I know the answers already.” He looks at me intently, and I try not to flinch from his gaze. The one who you meet; a certain fool called Dontos, isn’t it?”

I blurt out without thinking: “Not anymore. I’ve not seen him for a while.”

I regret my words as soon as they’re out and the Hound smiles knowingly.

“Not really good at intrigue, are you? Doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve known for quite a while now, and I think that even the queen knows, because of Varys the spider and his little birds.”

I put a hand on my mouth to stifle my gasp of fear. “Oh no! What do you think she will do?”

“She won’t do anything, as he won’t ever come again here to meet you. He’s dead.”

This time I cannot suppress a gasp, and a sense of unreality with renewed despair seizes me badly. I wring my hands.

“What happened? Has the queen had him killed? Did you kill him?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing like this. I visited him earlier in the afternoon in his quarters, to question him. On my initiative, not the queen’s,” he adds hastily. “Then he died.”

My eyes narrow and a sense of foreboding chills me. “Don’t tell me that you tortured him until he died?”

“That’s not my way, and I didn’t need to do it. He died of fright from my questions and knowing that he was lost. He was weak, old, rotted by the drink and a fat body.”

“It’s still your fault! If you hadn’t come in his room and threatened him, he would still live, rescue me and help me escape! The poor man, who wanted to help me! What have you done, you beast, you’ll go to hell for this!”

“I’ve already been there, remember?” He’s sliding closer to me and grabs my shoulders roughly.  I react by clenching a fist and hitting one of his hands repeatedly. This makes him laugh for a moment, and when he removes his hands, his lips pulled back from his teeth like the dog he is.

“You don’t know anything, you little ignorant fool! He spilled everything to me, and it’s not what you think, your beloved Florian bringing you to a nice ship and you sailing away to a place where you’ll be safe. He was promised ten thousand gold dragons to deliver you to someone who has had plans for you for a long time. And guess who? Littlefinger, who betrayed your father!”

I’m rendered speechless by this. While I want to struggle against this new knowledge, to drive it out of my mind, I know deep inside of me that this is true. It was another of these illusions that I still harbored which had hypnotised me into thinking again that a song could come true. Again, I cannot blame this man for rooting out the truth and flinging into my face, but I’m still furious at him for telling me this, for having interfered in my plans, ill advised or not. How he must take pleasure of my being prisoner there forever.

I thought that I would cry at the death of one of my last hopes, but I feel too devastated and instead a great cold has enveloped me. I feel anger, I feel hate. I turn around to face him on the bench and find out once again that as having not reacted in my expected ways, it unbalances my foes. _Yes, he is a foe._ He’s watching me closely, with a puzzled expression on his face that makes him look almost vulnerable. I remember from the other night that he had told that I should have treated him better, and I think that I’ll be nice and then after that really hurt him, hurt him as bad as I’m hurting now; make him bleed in a different way that he’s used to.

It’s very hard to do, as I still fear him and at the same time would prefer to strike him instead of what I do next. I lift my hand to his face, and very slowly and gently, I stroke the good side of his face and his long black hair, smiling sweetly at him. Then I see something that I’ve never seen in his face before, _a softening_ that changes it completely, and he leans his cheek into my hand, for a moment; a long, long moment until he gets a suspicious gleam in his eyes and his face hardens in a black fury. His hands seize my wrists in such a hard grasp that I cry out.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He’s speaking through clenched teeth. “Don’t play with me, little girl.”

And still the defiance is in me. ‘What will you do then? Beat me, kill me? Do it, I don’t care. I have no reasons for living anymore.”

Everything happens so fast that I have no time to react. From sitting I find myself suddenly sprawled on the ground on my back, with him lying down on top of me, his big body and heavy weight making me unable to struggle against him. I’m suffocating. His arms and legs block any movement from my limbs, and his face hovers above mine, looking older and bleak.

“Oh really?” he asks through a raspy whisper. “We’ll see about that.”

His face his leaning down toward mine, getting closer, and I’m filled with a fresh terror, like the one I had felt in my chamber on the night of the battle while he was crouching down on me with his teeth barred, bathed in that strange green light; except that this time he’s smelling sweeter, with only a hint of sweat and wine coming off from him. I move my head back and forth to avoid contact with his face, to escape those eyes, while I whimper and plead.

“Please, Hound, stop this! I’m scared, mercy!”

He sighs through his nose. “I see that the little bird still has a will to live. That’s good.”

His face is still getting closer to mine, and I cannot do anything to stop it; but he surprises me with what he does. His mouth finds my forehead and cheeks, and he kisses them repeatedly in a strangely delicate and tender way. This shifts the hate for a moment, stirring something in my chest. Then supporting himself on his elbows and knees, he heaves himself off me and gets up. I sit up. Bending down, he hauls me to my feet by grasping me under my armpits.

I sway a bit for a moment and start to dust my dress furiously, to calm all the feelings that are warring in me and which are making me feel overwhelmed with their force. He doesn’t do anything, uncaring of the dust and dirt on him. He’s smirking again.

“Are you starting to regret not having left with me when I asked you? Would have saved you a lot of pain.”

“Never! I never will. And you didn’t leave. You’re still there.”

“Not for long, pretty thing. I’m just biding my time. And next time, when I leave, I won’t ask you; you’ll leave with me, whether you want it or not. That’s a promise.”

This time, when I make a move to escape, he doesn’t move and lets me go, laughing.


	3. Sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the TV version, Tyrion's mistress, Shae is portrayed quite differently from her character in the books. I've tried to keep faithfully to GRRM's depiction of her character.
> 
> Oh, how I love it when Sansa escapes...

On that night, sleep is a long time coming. Such turmoil is churning inside of me like a poisoned soup that has boiled over.

The hate and anger that I had felt are gone, thankfully. I would have never have expected to harbor these kind of feelings inside me; so strong and overbearing. I feel ashamed about them. What possessed me to provoke the Hound in this way? I was lucky to have escaped with nothing having happened except been scared by him. Had I not learned anything about how dangerous and unpredictable he could be? But he has some notions of honour, I have to give him that; he released when I begged him for mercy.

The only hope that I have left is the wedding to Willas Tyrell; I’ll be in Highgarden, living a quiet and safe life with this kind man... Although I would have much preferred to be wed to his brother, ser Loras. He was so beautiful and everything that I had dreamed of in a knight, although that dream had been broken too. When I had seen him again, he hadn’t remembered giving me that red rose before his joust on the Hand’s tourney. He had been both courteous and indifferent, not having even remembered _me,_ while that gesture had meant so much to me. Then Joffrey had told me that he preferred swords to flowers, and I had turned red from the shock and humiliation.

The queen has promised me a new dress, to be delivered in two days, and it sparks my hopes again that I’ll be wed to Willas.

On the next morning, I wake up tired from a short night of bad sleep, and the world seems quite bleak. I’m afraid that my prayers will still be unanswered by the Gods who seem to be indifferent to my fate, and I wonder if the Hound was right, when he had said that they didn’t exist.

In the afternoon, I sense that my maid, Shae, is distraught, something unusual for this beautiful, cool headed girl. I’ve had her as my maid for months now; before, when the queen didn’t trust me, I had a different maid every second day so I wouldn’t be able to make an alliance with one of them. Now that she views me as tamed, she has stopped doing this.

We are in my chamber, and I stop her from putting away some dresses in my chest by putting a hand on her shoulder. She startles and looks at me. Something must be seriously wrong. I invite her to sit on the bed next to me and that bewilders her more.

“Shae, I’ve never seen you like this. What is wrong?”

“My lady, you really want to know?” Her face has become closed.

She gets up and closes the door, locking it, and this is starting to make me nervous. She comes back and stands up in front of me, her mouth suddenly hard.

“I have a question for you first, my Lady. Do you really want to escape this place?”

It is my turn to startle. I had not expected that, and I feel my heart beating hard and my eyes getting huge. Is this some kind of trap? I don’t answer, and she gazes at me with a speculative gleam in her eyes, then smiles warmly.

“Do not be afraid, my lady. What will be said now won’t go beyond this door. That’s why I locked it.”

“You’re giving your word?” I ask fearfully.

“Yes, my lady.”

“Why are you asking me this? I want to know.”

She blows out a long breath and is looking at me now with contracted features.

“It has been said that there’s another wedding being planned. For you. With Tyrion Lannister.”

“What!” I exclaim loudly, then catching myself, I lower my tone. “That’s madness, it cannot be. Where have you heard this?”

“From Tyrion himself. They think that it will give them the key to the North with Tyrion having the claim to Winterfell through your marriage to him.”

Now I am the one who’s distraught with incredulity and an awful sense of doom while I look at her with new mistrust in my eyes.

“How can you know about all of this, when you’re just a maid?”

Her smiles turn crafty. “Because I’m Tyrion mistress. I was given to him on the battlefield, and he has brought me here to keep me closer to him and safe, under the guise of a servant girl so his father won’t know about it. He had forbidden him to bring me here.”

“So that’s why you mentioned my escape. You don’t want to become less important to him, to be brushed aside, if he marries me.”

I see her in a different way now. She’s a whore... The mask of the nice, helpful maid has dropped, and it seems that her kindnesses of the past must have been lies too. A whore spends her life pretending and lying, so it must have been easy for her. Her features have transformed to something harder, more calculated, and I’m spying a new viper now. I’m sure that she never shows that face to Tyrion; what she really is. I feel angry again while I try to conceal it behind the mask of the composed lady.

“So you would help me escape so I couldn’t marry him.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Why would I believe that you’ll help me? You could easily send me into a trap where I could be killed, thus resolving your problems by my death.”

“That would be too risky,” she replies coolly. “You are an important hostage and they would investigate this thoroughly. It could come back to haunt Tyrion and make his position precarious.”

“Oh. And when is that supposed wedding to happen?”

“On the morrow, my lady; when you’re presented with your new dress. After you have bathed and dressed, you will be brought to the Septon, where it will occur.”

“Then why wasn’t I told of this? Why hide it from me? It’s preposterous.”

“Because they don’t want to give you time to think and protest. It was planned with speed and in secrecy, so you wouldn’t know and they could lay their claim as fast as possible.”

 _But Tyrion knew... And he had never mentioned anything to me..._ That’s how important I’m to be to him, just a pawn in their games, and another woman to bed. And while he had been sometime kind to me it hadn’t meant anything either; just the courtesies that were bred into him by his rank. And I certainly don’t want to marry him! Just the thought of his small and shirt misshapen body climbing up on me at night, his stunted hands pawing me makes my skin crawl.

Something breaks in me then; a dam is falling from the powerful, heavy rush of feelings that are engulfing me now, drowning even my everlasting fear in their wake. No more of this bobbing in a sea at the mercy of any wave that comes my way; my fate is changing all the time at the whim of these hateful people.

Shae has watched me while I have been reflecting and she probably seen the feelings on my face. She’s smiling triumphantly at this, and while I don’t really trust her anymore, I know that what she has told me is the truth; why else would she want me to be gone?

“When?” I ask her.

“Now.”

*******

Two hours later, I’m emerging from the grate, having being led blindfolded through the dungeons so I would not know of the secret way and the identity of the person who has guided me silently. So wise and calculated of them: they really know how to protect themselves, unlike me, who hasn’t a shred of cunning. Shae has probably given her favors to this man too.

The horse is there as promised, saddlebags bulging. How have they managed to bring it out here without arousing suspicions? I feel like such a blind, ignorant fool. Shae has packed them, and I find some of my dresses, smallclothes, and a lot of food for the road, a bedroll and a blanket; even a pouch of golden dragons. Where has she gotten them? Probably from her Lord Tyrion who must have given her a pile already for her services.

Well, these are not my concerns anymore. I’m free, for the first time in years. FREE! I get on the mare and enter through the woods.

The way is harder than I thought, with all the roots of the old trees making my mare side step them carefully, and I’m not an expert rider.

I listen to the chirping and songs of the birds and they seem to be more beautiful than those of the Keep, because they’re not enclosed in walls. The breeze has nothing to stop it; it can travel for leagues until it’s stopped, and I love its cleansing effect on my face. I wonder if I’ll ever be rid of this feeling of being somehow _soiled._

Although I know that what I’m doing is a folly, I don’t care about the dangers, my inexperience; I’ll learn, I’ll adapt, I’ll survive. Even if I die because of it, this will be my experience, my own destiny.

As the trees get thinner and younger near the end of the Kingswood, I decide to take the Kingsroad, even if it is risky, as I’ll be able to make better time and put as much distance as possible from King’s Landing. My disappearance won’t be noticed until tomorrow morning, with Shae having promised to cover for my absence for the evening and the night; so I think that the risk is minimal.

As I urge my mare to go faster, I’m scared at first, but as I start to enjoy the speed and gain confidence, I feel so exhilarated by it that I let out a whoop of pure joy; then laugh wildly. I feel like the wind, like nobody will ever catch me again!

 

**Sandor**

 

I had never been so idle in my life before. In the long weeks that it took me to heal, I had all the time in the world to think. While my body was sick and I had fever at first, my head worked _quite well._ In the moments I was awake, in my dreams; it kept on dredging up emotions and memories from the bottom of the vat in my mind. And I was too weak to get up and try to occupy my time with something else.

The memory that had preyed first on my mind was of the Blackwater Battle...There I had been faced once again with the only thing which I dreaded: fire. And bursting in all colours; plumes of gold and red, clouds of green from that wicked wildfire which nothing could put out. Seeing the men burn endlessly, the battle that we were losing, all bathed by that malevolent green light. But I was the one that had lost it all that night.

I had told off Joffrey and the Imp, refusing to obey orders and not caring anymore what they thought... I would have no more of this war, of this place. I had packed things hurriedly on my horse, while getting drunker, throwing up and then drinking again... I had ascended the stairs to her room in a trance, and nothing had gone as I had wanted. _I had told her that I could keep her safe, but_ _of course she hadn’t wanted to leave with me and was still repulsed by the sight of my face._ _The growing anger of the past years had made me lose my head; filled me with the blackest fury. I had pushed her down on the bed and put my dagger at her throat; but I had left without taking her as I had meant to because she had moved me to tears with her little song about mercy and her hand on my cheek..._ There in the hall, I had found these fucking vultures that were hungry for a taste of the spoils of battle before they were captured and killed by the enemy. A savage joy had brought me back to life when I had recognised the two knights whom I hated the most; I would kill all of those who would try to hurt her, like I had offered her in her room. The battle had been over for them.

But deep inside of me, I had known that the slide had begun before that, on that trip north to Winterfell. When I had first viewed Lady Stark, I had found her to be pretty, a tall woman with red hair and of haughty bearing, but that appreciation had been nothing compared to what I had felt when I saw her eldest daughter. My first view of her had dazzled me, as I couldn’t believe that a girl so beautiful and exquisite was real, that she hadn’t come out of a fever dream... She was strolling in the courtyard with her wolf, and I hadn’t been able to resist coming on behind her and putting my hands on her shoulders. She had turned around, trembling and startled, and had flinched at the sight of me. I had laughed, but inside I had felt bitter and angry.

When I had known that Lord Eddard Stark would bring his two daughters with him on the journey down south, I had felt a mighty surge of excitement. While I knew that I could never have a girl like her, that she was out of my reach forever because of rank, alliances and my horrible burns, I was glad that she wouldn’t be lost to me in these northern reaches, but to be part of the life at King’s Landing. All through the journey, I had watched her avidly and she had done everything to avert her gaze from me.

While I had been lured by her innocence and purity, I couldn’t help but be irritated by her awe of the highborns, so eager to please that glittering company and to fit in with them. Even though she had started to find out the true nature of Joffrey, my liege, that under his pretty appearance he was rotten through, she had clung to her vision of the charming prince and tried to keep the songs alive, the dreams that she had thought were coming true for her.

But the romantic songs had ended fast, replaced by darker ones that she had no knowledge of and of which nobody sung of. Her father meddling in things that had already killed the previous Hand, still persisted foolishly in bringing the truth out, being a man of honour, and he had paid the price by losing his head. The real nature of the new King had blossomed more and more as his betrothed lost everything and got under his complete power. Then he really started to have his fun.

I knew of his true nature, how cruel, cold and malicious he could be, and that I hadn’t bothered me before, as I could keep a firm hand on him like nobody else could; and I hadn’t cared then who he could have hurt in his tantrums. But I didn’t feel the same regarding this girl; she had opened something in me, brought some deeply hidden tenderness and a fierce sense of protectiveness. And he was so much worse with her; I had chafed at my powerlessness to stop this, at my influence over him which was decreasing as his viciousness was growing... I did what I could to act as a wall between his cruelty and her helpless state, but I couldn’t do much; any more and I would become disobedient; he would make me lose my head too, and she would be truly alone.

I had tried to wake up her to the reality around her so she could become more cunning and able to defend herself; but with her innocence and naive nature, she had only managed to pretend and lie badly. I had told her at first that if she wanted to suffer less to give Joffrey what he wanted... But what did Joffrey want? It kept changing every day, depending on his mood; what pleased him one day displeased him on the next one. _So that had been bad advice._ I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself or to her that this battle had already been lost; that she could do nothing to keep him from hurting her, because that was what drove him, the pleasure of inflicting pain.

And she treated me like I was her worst enemy, always wanting to escape from me instead of seeing me as I was: her only ally. I had started to feel bad again about my scars; these scars that I had used to scare people were repulsive to the one whom I didn’t want to scare. If that were not enough, I scared her too with my surly disposition.

Once, I as I had looked in the mirror while shaving the good side of my face, I had put up a cloth to cover my bad side; how I had wished that my whole face would look like this... While it was a hard and wicked face, _at least it looked normal._ Then I had put the cloth to cover the good side, and I had seen a beastly monster, a demon from the seven hells; an angry eye surrounded by twisted scars, the corner of its mouth burned and mangled and the whole side covered in burned flesh. But still, underneath all my anger and harshness was a yearning to be accepted like I was, scars and all by this girl; I kept persisting in it, and when it didn’t happen I got even more furious and stubborn about it.

My loyalties had shifted gradually from my liege to her, and I knew that was bad; how could I go on being his sworn shield thinking like this? Viewing the world through her innocence and pain only emphasised everything which I hated about it; the lies, the hypocrisy, the scrambling for power all covered up by pretty smiles, courtesies and songs.

Lying helpless in my bed, I had discovered something new. The healer had assistants to help him, and there was one, a plump plain girl with a serene face who would tend to me. I remember one time as she had gently wiped my fevered forehead, saying sweet nonsense to comfort me, her compassionate eyes looking down on me. She hadn’t seemed afraid by the sight of my face, and her caring had touched me. _I had even thanked her._

Then I had known what was inside of me. I had always scoffed at love, thinking that it was just another pretty word to cover lust and its primitive urges. That’s how I had always felt; when wanting a woman, I would visit a brothel, fuck a whore and after having had my release, leaving with no further feeling than of having been satisfied. I never grew any attachments to any of them.

I had felt the lust for Sansa, true, but is was more than that; lust wasn’t a constriction in the chest, a caring about the welfare of this girl, the worry; that a smile, a tear or her fear would influence my moods instantly like if I were their puppet; this had taken over me and compelled me to do what had been against my interest and duties; destroying the balance of my once steady life. Even though I had fought and fought it; I was in love, damn me to the seven hells...

I had spoken the truth to little bird when I had said that I would leave again.

I had waited to regain my strength back and to be fully recovered. I had started training again in the early mornings and while at first it had been hard, now I’m back to my old self again, except for that new scar. This time I won’t mess it up like on that green night. It won’t be impulsive and I won’t be drunk. I have already made some moves to prepare the way, planned carefully and it won’t be long now.

Some instinct has driven me to ask some insignificant person in the castle to keep watch over her, paying him generously with gold coins, so he can keep track of her when I’m busy with my duties. He looks nondescript enough that he can melt into walls, hardly noticed. The irony of what I’ve been doing doesn’t escape me. Here I am plotting and paying a spy like they do, as if there weren’t enough spies in the Keep already. Their ways of doing have rubbed off on me, but I have found her new defiance to be disquieting and need to keep a closer than ever check on her.

My position has so many advantages, the best of them being privy to a lot; the plans, plotting, talks... From all the incessant meeting between the queen, the Imp and their father outside of court, I have a feeling that something big is being planned, and that it’s about Sansa’s Stark fate; since the breaking of her betrothal to Joffrey, she’s a loose end for them. _And still very valuable._ I know that her situation won’t remain the same; that the royals will still want to keep her under their power while trying to marry her off to strong allies so they’ll still be able to get their hands on her claim to Winterfell. While I have managed to foil Littlefinger’s own secret plans – and without his knowing about it, luckily - I know that time is short, and I’ll have to make my move soon.

Several days later, after court has adjourned and I’m escorting the King to his quarters, I feel quite bothered by the expression on his face; something seems to have given him great joy and he can’t stop showing his glee with malicious smiles. As we reach his chambers and he sprawls on his divan, he’s looking at me and fidgeting, like he’s trying to come to a decision. The he settles and signal me to close the door.

As I turn my back on him to close the door, I feel my mouth twitching and my unease increasing. When Joffrey is in that kind of mood, it never bodes well for others. Then I come back and I’ve put on my impassive expression again.

“Come closer dog; I don’t want anyone else to hear this.”

I stand in front of him, relaxing my body in a pose of nonchalance.

“There’s a big surprise for tomorrow; you’ll never guess what it is.”

“No, I’ll never guess”, I drawl with disinterest.

“There is going to be a wedding tomorrow. “

I frown in inquiry. “Not yours, I hope?”

“Not mine, not yet. It will go on as planned. This is an unexpected, important one that can’t wait. Two kindred souls who have finally found each other. You’ll see. Everyone will be shocked, even you!”

“We’ll see about that. Is that all?”

“Yes dog, you can go now.” Then he starts to giggle hysterically, and it takes all of my will to leave as calmly as possible, and only when I’m out in the hall do I start gnashing my teeth furiously.

No! I’ve guessed from his hints what they were planning so secretly: a wedding between the Imp and Sansa Stark! What a better way for the royals of having a direct control over the North than this marriage with one of their own! Even if Jaime Lannister had been here, they couldn’t have chosen him, as he was of the Kingsguard and forbidden to marry. But the Imp is unmarried and I know that however he feels about it, he’ll do his duty as he’s bid; if he refuses, his family will strip him of everything; power, money and exile him to the Free Cities, or worse.

_I don’t want this little monster’s hands on her, despoiling her._

Seven hells! I never expected something to happen so quickly, but I’m grateful that Joffrey couldn’t hold his tongue. _That fucking little pup has been useful for once..._

I’m striding fast to the floor below, and as I descend the stairway, I see my spy coming up to meet me. The mortified and fearful expression on his face tells that something else has gone wrong.

“M’lord”, he exclaims as we meet on the stairs. “I cannot find the little lady. Her maid said that she had gone to the godswood, but I didn’t find her there. I wandered in the halls. I had men sent to the Gates to check if they had seen something, but nothing unusual happened. She’s nowhere to be found!”

I’m so angry that I could howl at the moon if it was up. I’m breathing fast and clenching my fists repeatedly as not to kill the fool on the spot. Was it so hard for him to stand guard? Probably slept on the job or sneaked out to fuck some girl... It would serve no purpose to kill him except create more complications and I need to keep my wits about me. I can’t lose time now. I just look at him with the entire wrath that is in me, and he seems to shrink against the wall.

“Never mind. You’re released from these duties now, and don’t expect me to pay you for today. Consider yourself lucky that I have other things to do which are more important than killing you now, you fucking worm.”

He escapes gladly, and I continue my descent to her floor. I knock on her door, and it takes quite a while for me to hear footsteps approaching it. The door is open narrowly, and through the slit I spy the face of her maid, the beautiful Shae.

“Where is she?” I bark without much ado. “The King wants her now.”

“I’m sorry, but she has taken ill suddenly; a fever. The healer came and now she’s resting quietly.”

Then she shuts the door on my face. Nice bit of sass and lying, but I’ve seen the tension around her eyes, and I know that Sansa Stark is no more sleeping in her bed than I’m doing a merry dance.

 _Fuck!_ There goes my careful plan; it seems that this working machine that I had built keeps having parts breaking down rapidly; now another cog has disappeared and it has stopped it to a grinding halt. _But it’s no use hitting my head on the wall and moaning against the capricious fates._ _I have to go now._

I descend the stairway once again, this time to my quarters. I take out a big leather bag and hurriedly put clothes in it, three wineskins and my heavy pouch of gold coins. Then I leave and go down the last stairs to the courtyard. I have the strong feeling that she’s done it; escaping, and the only way that I can think of is that she’s managed to do it with help of this one, Shae. There are three persons who know the secret way out of the dungeons through a tunnel that open up into the kinsgwood. I’m one of them, and this Shae has certainly bribed one or both of the others with sexual favors. Why would she help Sansa Stark? I don’t have the time to find the answer to this or question either one of those two who know of the secret passage to confirm this. I dump clothes in one saddlebag and the coin bag into the other, and then lead out Stranger out of his stall and the stables. Then I mount him and urge him to the Gate of the Gods.

The guard looks at me quizzically, as he has heard of nothing warranting an outing outside of the walls.

“Urgent kingsguard business, out of my way!” I shout, advancing on him. He opens the gate fast and keeps close to the wall.

Now I’m entering the Kingswood, and I’m wondering about how I am going to find her in there - if she’s still there. It is quite big – and there are tales of people hiding in it who have not been found for years - but there’s only a little part of it to cross to reach the Kingsroad. While it would be more prudent for an escapee to keep to the adjoining woods, I figure that she’s thought she was safe from any immediate pursuit and wants to be as far away as possible from King’s landing before sundown.

I try to go as fast as I can on this difficult ground but it is slow going, and when I reach the thinning trees I let out a big sigh of relief. I hear a distant sound behind me from my right side which is not of the forest and on instinct I come out of the woods and keep myself hidden behind the last trees on my left. Stranger and I stop and become as silent and as immobile as the trees, until I start to hear clear hoof steps and as they’re coming closer, I spy a mare with a slight cloaked figure on it, her long hair shining like newly minted copper from the sun’s rays. _The little fool, she hasn’t hidden her hair!_ My heart starts to pound with excitement.

I keep still as she and the mare reach the road. As soon as they are on it, she urges the mare to a gallop, raising her arm in triumph and letting out great whoops of joy. I find this sight so moving and exhilarating that I still don’t move yet, wanting her to have this moment of joy.

The when she has become a speck in the distance, I urge Stranger on and begin my pursuit.


	4. The Hound Catches Up

**Sansa**

 

The fields and trees rush from the corner of my eyes; a blur of colour while the road has opened widely in front of me. The horizon seems to call to me, daring me to go still faster so I can catch it and join it in rejoicing of this new taste of freedom.

Then I start to hear from behind the unmistakeable sound of hoof beats, and from the way they’re coming, pounding fast and hard, I know that somebody has glimpsed me and is in pursuit. My heart comes up in my throat, constricting it in terror and consternation. _Oh no! What has happened? Has somebody discovered that I was missing? But it’s too fast! It wasn’t supposed to happen until morning!_ Is it Shae who has sent someone to kill me? Or is it a stranger who has spied me, a girl alone on the road, fair game?

I urge the mare to go on still faster, but the other rider is coming along side of me now, and I feel suddenly a hard arm snaking around my waist, lifting me off from the saddle and having me land roughly on the other saddle, while I hear mocking laughter and feel the rumbles of it through the chest of the rider who is behind me, grasping me tightly against his body.

I struggle as much as I can, trying to hold and hit the other arm that is holding on to the reins while the horse is slowing down. A harsh voice sounds near my ear.

“Stop that! You’ll make the horse rear, and you’ll find that it is a long way down from this horse.”

 _And it is._ I stop reluctantly. Of course, I had recognised who it was from the sound of his laughter and sitting now so high up on that big black horse of this, I can only keep still when he brings Stranger to a stop, while I spy my mare further down the road, having slowed down too. She turns back and trots back in our direction when he whistles sharply near the top of my head.

Then he dismounts, leaving me perched high on his horse while my mare is coming up to him. Before I have time to react, he wrenches off the saddlebags from her and slaps her on the flank, and off she goes trotting back to the Kingswood. I try to dismount quickly, but the stirrup is lower that what I’m used to and I have a hard time reaching it, and I land hard on my feet. In despair, I run in the direction of my retreating mare, calling to her, stumbling and already getting out of breath. In a few long strides, he catches me from behind, his arms encircling my middle and lifting me off while I struggle uselessly. I keep at it until I’m too tired and stop, panting and feeling drained. His arms loosen their hold on me and I land on my feet again, swaying a bit before regaining my balance. I turn around to face him, furious.

“What have you done? Now I’ve lost my horse!”

Expressionless, he doesn’t answer me and walks in the direction of my saddlebags lying on the road. He has heaved them up on his horse’s back before I have managed to reach him. I tug on his sleeve hard while he opens them and start to rummage through their contents, although it has no effect.

“You can’t go through my things! Stop this!”

“Well, well,” he says softly while a smile is tugging at his mouth. “You were well prepared indeed. Even having a little pouch of gold.”

He takes it out of the bag and puts it back in his own saddlebag, laughing. The brazenness of this sets my teeth on edge.

“This is mine! You have no right to take it! I won’t go back you know, even if you have stripped me of everything.”

“You won’t go far with nothing. And even though this was a brave thing which you did today, you wouldn’t have been able to last long by yourself, in the woods and on the road.”

“I don’t care! I don’t want to go back!” I stop and take a deep breath, looking up pleadingly in dark grey eyes. “Can you not me help get away? Bring back my mare? I’m sure that you could find a good explanation of why you haven’t found me. I know that you are the King’s dog, but can you not forget it for this day? Please?”

Oh really.” He comes closer to me and takes a strand of my hair between his big fingers, playing with it. “It would take something very sweet to make me forget it, pretty bird. You’d have to be nice to me. Come closer and give me a kiss or two, but not like those chaste little pecks you used to give to Joffrey.”

I feel my face flushing hotly with rage and humiliation. Has there been anything this man has not spied me doing? I react instinctively and wrench myself back. ‘No! Never, I’m not a whore. You forget yourself.”

I’ve raised my head high, wanting to shame him with an expression of haughtiness, but he only gives a short bark of laughter, shaking his head in derision.

“What a child you are. But never mind this. I’m not the King’s dog anymore. I left too.”

My eyes go round in astonishment. “What? Why?”

His mouth hardens. “Don’t you remember what I said the other night? Told you I would leave. _With you this time._ Now, enough speaking. We have to fly. You’ll sit behind me, as I want to ride hard until dusk.”

“But I don’t want to go with you! You made my horse leave, you stole my gold and tricked me into thinking that you were there to return me to the Keep; tricked me into begging you!”

I see him gnashing his teeth and his mouth twitch, just like he does when something upsets him. His grey eyes turn stormy.

“Alright then. You have two choices. Ride with me or walk ahead. I don’t fucking care.”

I turn back and start to walk in the direction where I was headed at first, spying a crossroad not too far away. Maybe there is a village near: _I’ll ask somebody to help me, I’ll work in an inn for room and board, whatever it takes. There must be people who are good in this world._

I hear once again hoof beats following me, soon reaching me, cantering at the same pace as my footsteps. I refuse to look at him and seeing him take off with a mocking smile, leaving me there.

“Little bird... Stop being so stubborn. I only made the mare go away because I thought that you would take off and try to escape from me. A girl like you can’t be safe by herself, even with a horse and money. Imagine if it had been somebody else than me riding after you?”

That stops me in my tracks, as it was exactly what I had feared when I had heard his horse pursuing me. I hesitate. The horse stops and he dismounts, approaching me carefully as if I were a wild animal. There is something almost soft in his face as he fixes me intently.

“You don’t need to prove that you’re not a coward. I know that you’re brave. But it can’t be as you wanted, if you want to survive. Trust me to be a good protector, at least.”

I don’t know if it is the compliment or fear for my own safety that decides me, but I don’t protest as he lifts me up on the saddle, mounting after to sit in front of me, his large back close to my face. He puts my arms around his middle, and as much as I don’t feel comfortable holding him, I’m glad of doing it as after a few moments, as his horse is gaining speed and I’m bouncing in the saddle. My gallop with the mare was nothing compared to this speed, and even holding tight to him I’m afraid of falling.

We go on like this for what seems to be hours, only seeing isolated farms and once in a while farmer travelling on his full buggy. When the sun has gotten near the horizon line, we enter through a wood and go slower and deeper in it, until the Hound finds a spot that he likes and then we come to a full stop.

He dismounts first and lifts me off from the saddle. I stumble and sway once on the ground, as I discover I’ve become bow legged and very sore. I fumble around until I manage to sit down against a tree, while the Hound is chuckling. I’m so tired that for the moment I don’t care about his mocking me again, and I think that I must have dozed a bit, as the next time that I open my eyes, he has brought down one of the saddlebags and has started a fire from twigs that he’s gathered. He offers me a waterskin and I drink gratefully and thirstily from it, while he’s gulping down from what is certainly a wineskin, from the smell. He’s sitting across me, with the fire between us.

“Had a good nap?”

Now that I’m awake, the resentment which had evaporated rises up again in me.

“I have noticed that we’re not going North.”

“True.

“But why? I wanted to go to Riverrun, to join my mother there. I want to go back to my family!”

“It’s not possible anymore. Would be a folly to ride through all the fighting that’s going on there. Too many persons would want to take you for the fat ransom money they could get through delivering you to Riverrun. And that’s where the people at King’s Landing would expect you to go, north. So forget this. ”

While I would like very much to protest and argue about his decision, I know that he’s right. Also, I have another resentment that I had kept hidden in me because I had felt that it was disloyal of me to feel like this but I can’t help but feel it. Why have my mother and brother not made any efforts to free me from the Red Keep? They probably were thinking that their war was more important than me. Just thinking about this stirs bitter sorrow in my chest, and I have to push it down again as not to sniff in front of him.

When I have regained my composure, I look up at him, but find only a gleam of some kind of compassion in his eyes. _So he knows_. But I have still a lot of anger to occupy my thoughts yet and keep the tears away.

“I’d like to know how you could have found me so fast, known where I was, that I had escaped.”

He snorts. “Easy. When you couldn’t be found anywhere, and you’re often easy to find, I went to your room and saw Shae, the whore. From the look on her face, I knew that she had helped you escape.”

“How do you know that she’s a whore?”

He grins at me cockily, making me blush. “Been around whores long enough to sniff one out.” Then he frowns in puzzlement. “Though I don’t understand why a whore would want to work as a lady’s maid. Not so profitable work.”

This makes me forget my embarrassment, and I lift up my chin in triumph. “Because it’s a ruse, to keep Lord Tywin from knowing that Tyrion has brought his mistress in the castle when he had been forbidden to do it. And she knew about the planned wedding; Tyrion told her. So you don’t know everything, Sandor Clegane.”

For once, his merriment is true as he bursts into laughter, slapping his thigh; but I’m disappointed that he doesn’t seem more impressed by what I have disclosed.

“That’s a good one! How fitting. Who else would want to share his bed except a whore?”

I gasp at this, and he scowls at me. “Spare me your false pity. You too couldn’t stand the thought of, did you? Made you fly away fast enough.”

He’s right as usual, and I bite my bottom lip, feeling caught out again by him.

“Now, I understand. And an ambitious whore too, having her claws in a highborn, she won’t let go easily. He must be smitten to have told her this, never expecting that she would tell you. She has, hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I reply in a sullen tone. “But how would you know about me wanting to escape today? This wedding had been planned in secrecy; nobody knew that it would happen tomorrow, except for the queen, Lord Tywin, Tyrion and Joffrey.”

“I’m the King’s dog, or was, remember? Joffrey had hinted of it today, couldn’t help himself. Wasn’t hard to guess of it after, or of how you had managed to disappear, because I too _know_ that there’s a secret way out. The whore must have worked her way around since she came to the castle; giving out some favors just in case she needed allies. The only difficulty for me was to find you before you would get in trouble or be snatched by somebody else.”

He’s looking at me with his smug smile, and I find his arrogance very infuriating, making me feel like some foolish child who can’t put a foot before the other one without blundering. Then his smile disappears, and his eyes turn smoldering and darker as they bore on my face.

“If you hadn’t made this move, I would have snatched you in the night. I too don’t want to see you married to that fucking monster. Although what you did made it much easier for me.”

“I certainly didn’t do it for you!” I reply indignantly. “I hadn’t planned for you being here.”

His mouth starts to twitch. He opens the bag, rummaging through it, and removes a hunk of cheese, some smoked sausages and bread.

“Seven hells, the treacherous bitch has packed well. We’ll be good for a while. I hadn’t time to take some food as I was in too much of a hurry to catch you.”

He cuts slices of the cheese and sausages with his dagger, offering them to me, but I shake my head curtly in negation. He sighs in exasperation.

“Sulk all you want, but it’s only you who’ll be punished, when you go to sleep later with an empty stomach. I’m hearing it growling already.”

I sigh too and extend my hand for his offerings. It is true, I’m starving. I hadn’t eaten the midday meal, being too upset and with my stomach in knots. We eat in silence, and I find to my surprise that I eat more than usual, and even take sips of the wine, discovering that I like its warmth as it settles on my full stomach. When we’re finished, the Hound put the saddlebag away and brings the other ones with the blanket and bedrolls, settling them on the ground away from the fire.

I stir the embers with a stick, making the flames leap and crackle again, and he squats between it and the bedrolls. The light of the flames make shadows play on his face, covering and uncovering the burned side of his face, making the scars appear even more marked. In fact, he’s looking downright sinister in the dark setting of the forest.

“I see now that you’re able to look at me in the face. That’s good.”

“I have no choice, don’t I, as I won’t be able to get rid of you?” I snap back. “I might as well get used to it.”

I regret right away having said that, as I spy his mouth twitching again while he’s averting his face from mine. I don’t know what to say, as I feel that apologising will only make things worse, so I say nothing and just sigh silently.

I have noticed that he has put the bedrolls close to each other, and that makes me very uneasy and scared again. When he tells me in a matter of fact way that it’s time to sleep, I stay where I am, my gaze transfixed on the bedrolls, and I see his teeth clenching.

“What are you afraid of? That I’ll jump on you? If I wanted to do that, I could do it from any place you would be in a couple of strides.” When I don’t reply, he continues impatiently: “Don’t think that we’re alone in these woods. We’re not the only ones travelling through them to escape notice, so if a wanderer spots a pretty morsel like you... better for you that I am near. And while you don’t feel it because of the fire, the nights are getting cold now.”

After digesting this, I say haltingly: “Well, you have leered at me several times in the past.... on the Serpentine and in my room. It has made me... uncomfortable.” Admitting this has made me very hot in the face, and I lower my head as not to meet his gaze.

“I know. But at least I did it with your clothes on. When Joffrey had Meryn stripped you naked at court, I only looked because I was forced to when I gave you my cloak. I had no joy from it, believe me.”

These words finally reassure me, and I’m surprised at them as I didn’t expect that kind of answer from him, as if he had understood how mortified I had felt then, how ashamed and vulnerable I had been, and he hadn’t rejoiced in it or been uncaring like the others.

I feel so tired, and while I don’t feel good in this situation, at least I feel that I have made some peace with the Hound tonight, some kind of truce. Getting up is hard, as all my muscles are cramping, and I lay down gratefully in the bedroll, wrapping myself up in it while he’s lowering himself down to his too. I don’t have time to wonder about anything else before a deep slumber engulfs me.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danger can change one's perspective....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everybody for having followed, the compliments and kudos.

**Sandor**

 

After having long left the Kingsroad, we are now riding on the Roseroad which is taking us south. We will eventually reach Highgarden, then Oldtown. We made good time on the road and only stopped in the forest for the night. I had preferred to make haste and had felt that there was little risk of pursuit in the southern direction. We had stopped briefly at Bitterbrige to buy more food supplies, head kerchiefs to cover her hair and a hooded cloak for me. I wanted for us to look as ordinary as possible on the road, without my burned face and her copper head to linger in people’s memories.

At night, she usually fell asleep not long after our supper, exhausted from the day’s ride, and we hadn’t talked much since the first night. I feared that the grueling pace that we managed to keep was too hard for her, as she was becoming drawn looking; as a delicate lady she wasn’t used to this hard travelling.

On the fourth morning, I let her sleep as long as she needs, but even though the sun is high in the sky when she finally gets up, she looks listless, and I know then that there is something more than tiredness bothering her. She hasn’t even asked me about our direction and where we are going since the first day; I find that disquieting. She has seemed to lose interest in everything, going along indifferently.

With Stranger tied to a tree at the end of the wood, we walk where I have spied a small river, its banks covered in fragrant wildflowers, bees and butterflies hovering over them lazily. For a moment, an expression of pleasure appears on her face; a ghost of a smile. She has brought supplies for washing, and when she nears the shore, she doesn’t even ask me to look away fearfully as I have expected to do. I still do it though, sitting among the flowers with my back turned from the river, hearing her splash in the water and the bees droning. Then I hear slight footsteps behind me; the sounds of clothes being put on again. Without saying anything, she goes to sit against a moss covered tree. I take my turn then, approaching the water and before undressing, I call out in jest:

“Please little bird, don’t look!” but I don’t hear an answering giggle. As I immerge in the water, I look at her leaning on the tree and her head has turned away, her profile as hard to read at that of a statue.

The water feels wonderful and refreshing on my body and head. It feels good to remove all the sweat and dirt from them. I’ve borrowed her own delicate soap, wanting to have this lovely fragrance on my skin too to keep me company, like if she were part of me. When I’m done, I walk up the shore and shake myself out like a dog before dressing again in clean garments, bringing everything back with me and dumping it near the tree before sitting beside her against it.

She stays there even though I’m close, and then I look at her intently.

“Something’s eating at you, little bird. Out with it; you’ll feel better.”

She turns her head slowly to look at me, and her eyes have a sullen cast to them.

“Will I? If I speak, you’ll only laugh at me again.”

“I’ll not laugh,” I reply firmly.

She gives out a mighty sigh. “It’s just that I had thought I would start to feel better after having left King’s Landing. I was so excited at first! But now, I feel even worse than when I was there. I keep seeing them, hearing their words, like they are inside of my head now.”

“So you thought that by leaving that would you return to how you were before, like if nothing had happened?”

A spark suddenly lights up in her eyes, and she nods eagerly. She feels understood. “Yes, that exactly what I had expected!”

I press my lips together and sigh too. “Too much happened in these years, you can’t erase it and go back to the way you were before. Even if you were reunited with your brother and mother, they have changed from their losses and the war, and so have you. Nothing can ever be the same again.”

“Oh.” She considers this for a moment, her eyes downcast, and then a frown appears as she looks at me again.

“But I feel so dirty now, so soiled! I’ve learned of all these awful things that people do. And I feel even worse remembering how I was so eager to please them, to be accepted by them. I’m ashamed by what I’ve done; groveling, betraying, because I was such a coward. I feel that I’m like them.”

I laugh drily. “Never worry about that. Had you been devious like them, you wouldn’t feel like this. Everybody do things that they don’t like to survive. You’ll accept it.”

Her eyes have grown bigger, drinking in my words as if she wants to believe them. But still her features are contracted, and she starts to pick up nearby flowers and throw them away, pick some again and tearing them apart and I watch this silently, feeling a pain too at this symbol of lost innocence. A tear is sliding down her face; her chin is trembling.

“Do you know what the worst was, at the end? This Shae... When she offered to help me escape, I didn’t trust her at first. I asked why she hadn’t me killed instead, and she said that it would be too dangerous for Tyrion. She didn’t care about killing me, just that it could be inconvenient for them!”

She bursts out in big sobs, wailing, and her blue eyes hold deep pools of long held pain. She covers her face like a child with her hands. I bring her to lean against me, so her face can rest on my chest and I put my arms around her trembling body. Her sobs are wrenching themselves out of her chest now; she cries so hard and so much that she has given me another bath with her tears.

When she has calmed down, I take a hand kerchief from a pocket and wipe her face carefully with it. Then I fold my cloak into quarters and put it on my lap, to cushion her head which I lay down on it. She closes her eyes and I start to stroke the shining copper hair which spills down like silk on the cloak; doing it in rhythmic, soothing movements. When I look down at her, her features have softened in slumber, making her look even more innocent and younger.

I don’t regret leaving King’s Landing. Even before the Blackwater battle, I had felt that my time there was coming to an end. The queen had started to have one of her men, Osmund Kettleblack, more often at Joffrey’s side than I. I understood that the queen was working at building her own alliances and loyalties with men that she hoped would carry out her will, as long as she could do it. Joffrey was still a child and she could order him still to do what she wanted. I was certain that eventually I would be replaced at his side by this Kettleblack, because of my defeat on that green night, and because some people saying that he was younger and faster than I... And where would an aging warrior go when his masters had drained him of everything, throwing him away like an old used vessel?

I ‘m glad now that I had decided for us to have a day of rest. It’s rare moment of peace for me, just sitting there and letting the time pass leisurely; hearing the leaves rustling from the breeze, inhaling smells both sweet and sharp from nature, feeling the cooler breath from the forest. So soothing is this quiet that I could almost believe having knowing nothing else but this, with this light burden on my lap, the shining hair that I’m keeping a strand of threaded through my fingers.

And as usual, peace is just a fleeting moment, and I feel it end when she stirs and squirms. Her eyes open, and when they look up at me, they fill suddenly with fear. She scrambles up as fast as she can to get away from me, staggering away while facing me. My mood changes too: I feel the old anger rise up, making my eyes smolder at her and my fists clenching.

“What are you scared of now?” My tone is harsh.

Her eyes narrow and her cheeks flush with furor. She’s started shaking again.

“You dare ask me that? _You!_ I know how you tried to help me at King’s Landing, but I paid dearly for it. Because you hurt me. You scared me when I encountered you alone, always angry at me and threatening me. You told me awful things, you mocked me. In spite of that, I still trusted you. On the night of the Blackwater battle, the queen kept saying that we would get either raped by the enemy or that ser Ilyn would kill us to spare us defeat. Fool that I was, I even thought that I could be safe because I believed that you wouldn’t let harm come to me, and instead, you were waiting in my room, threatening to kill me if I didn’t do what you wanted!”

Anger leaves me as swiftly as it has come. Her gaze is accusing and I hold it, feeling like I have tasted bitter coins in my mouth. I’ve unclenched my fists and kept as still as I can, as I feel something crucial is weighing on some kind of scale. Then she averts her gaze and sits down again, folding her legs close to her chest and cradling her face on her knees, crying again. This time I make no move, as I’m the last one who can comfort her. Trying to do it would be hypocrite and an insult. _What is done is done, and as much I would wish to, I can’t undo it._

I get up and lean against the tree and wait until she cries herself out, and now this moment stretches to an eternity. When she stops, she gets up and wipes her face with a fold of her skirt; a gesture that I find appealing in its lack of affectation. I must have smiled, as she looks up at me with a chin lifted defiantly. I lift mine too, my mouth pressing into a hard line.

“If you’re so scared of me, why did you stroke my face the other night in the godswood?”

“Because I wanted revenge. I wanted you to let down your guard, and then I would have done something bad, so you could hurt as much as I.”

“What makes you think that I’m not hurt already?”

She frowns at me, puzzled. She doesn’t understand what I mean.

I move away without elaborating, looking for a big branch that can be used as a spear. When I find one, I sit down again and use my dagger to sharpen the point, working carefully, concentrating on my task. Thankfully, she doesn’t know yet of the power that she holds over me, this little thing whose copper head doesn’t even reach my shoulders. When I had asked for a kiss, I knew that she would say no, being a lady and a maid, and while I had wanted it badly, I was relieved by her refusal. If a mere caress could reduce me to such a melting state, I couldn’t bear to imagine what a kiss would to do me.

I get up again and walk to the bank of the river, removing my boots and rolling up my britches. After a moment, she has followed me. Her face is clear now of all tensions and her eyes are filled with curiosity. _Ah, the resilience of youth..._ That makes me glad.

“What are you doing, Sandor?”

 _She’s called me for the first time by my name... That must be a good sign._ “Fishing. You can come closer and watch, but no talking and moving, as the noise will scare the fish away.”

She sits down near the shore, while I waddle in the water. It’s very clear, and after a while the fish start to come back again, circling around my legs and nibbling. I’ve kept the spear clutched in two hands, and when I spy a bigger fish, I point the spear at it and lower it down in a flash. I’ve hit it and taking the spear out of the water, I remove the fish from it and fling it on the bank very near her, making her startle. Then she giggles in excitement, her gaze admiring. I keep at it until I’ve caught four, more than enough for both of us.

Coming out of the water, I carry them near the tree and sit down to fillet and prepare them. She’s not there anymore, and I think that maybe she went further in the woods to relieve herself. When it takes her longer than expected to come back, I get up to look for her and spy her carrying back something in the iron pot.

When she’s close enough, I see mounds of mushrooms and blackberries; how she’s smiling proudly when showing them to me. It gives me a lump in the throat. She has gathered driftwood too, and she arranges it and light up a fire.

After a few times of having watched me do it, she has made the fire every night when we stop; knowing my aversion to fire and the why of it. It has been a thoughtful gesture, which of course is very typical of her nature. Spending so much time with her now, I notice all the little attentions that she gives me to make my life easier, and it makes me feel uneasy sometimes at how easy it has been to become accustomed to these.

When the food is ready, we devour it like wild starving beasts, not speaking except for shared glances of satisfaction. The mushrooms and berries have made it very tasty, and we both sigh with relief when it’s over. I pat my stomach in content.

“Best meal that I’ve had for a long time.”

“For me too. You know Sandor, I feel like a pig sometimes. I’ve never eaten so much before.”

I give a bark of laughter. “Being in the fresh air and out of your cage will do that to you, little bird.”

We sit side by side companionably, just exchanging little things, drinking a bit of wine. She has regained colours and sparkle; spewing out all that bottled poison inside has certainly helped her. When the fire is dying down and the night black, I prepare the bedrolls side by side, and I lay down in mine. She’s still sitting up and I wonder is something is still preying on her mind.

“You were wrong about the night getting colder. They’re getting milder.”

“Because we’re going south, that’s why. As we go further along, we’ll have to buy clothes better suited to a warmer climate.”

There’s still enough light from the fire to catch a gleam in her eyes. “You’re right. Shae had packed my warmest dresses, thinking that we were going north. The fool,” she crows in triumph.

We laugh mockingly at this together.

*******

The journey has been uneventful until now, which had surprised and gladdened me. We only have met woods people in the forest and farmers on the road. But as we were approaching Highgarden, I knew that the way would become more crowded with more people and scum to prey on them. I didn’t know this area, but I figured that people would be the same as up north, with the common human urges and greed.

In the afternoon, I spy three big lumps of grey barring the road up ahead and I try to slow down Stranger as fast as possible, but we’re still very near them when I find that the lumps are bodies of men in armor, lying there in various positions, with eyes opened and glazed. They look dead but something feels wrong and after a moment I know why: there’s no blood anywhere on them or on the road. My hackles start to rise, and Sansa feels the mounting tension in my body and tugs at my sleeve, as she can’t see behind me.

“What is it, Sandor?”

I speak in a low tone through my clenched teeth. “It’s a trap. Stay on the horse!”

I untie the cloak and thrown it on the road as I dismount fast. I just have time to slap Stranger on the flank to hurry him along in the opposite direction as the ‘dead’ men spring to life, getting back on their feet nimbly and unsheathing their swords, advancing on me with threatening expressions on their dirty faces, lips pulled back to reveal uneven and missing teeth. I unsheathe mine while trying to gauge them; what are they, deserters, pillagers, highwaymen? Whatever they are, they look poor and rough with avarice gleaming in their eyes.

I gaze at them in contempt, laughing mockingly.

“Only three?” I’m sneering. “I’m worth at least five of each of you!”

The first one is easy: retreat, block, feint then getting my blade in him through a vicious undercut. He gurgles and falls flat on his face. The remaining two circle me and grabbing the sword with two hands, I swing it into an arc which catches the neck of the one nearer, slicing through it and making his head fly in a big burst of blood. Unfortunately, the other one has taken advantage of my being occupied and trips me. I fall down on my side and have just the time to get on my back as he pounces on me with his knife, but my dagger is already out and I manage to bury it in the space of vulnerable flesh between the mail and his britches. He cries out and I push him away, finishing by slitting his throat.

I blow out a long breath, sitting up in the middle of the road. I remove my gloves and I whistle through my fingers to bring Stranger back, and moments after I spy him trotting in my direction, his hooves the only sound resonating now in the stillness. As he’s coming nearer, I spy her pale face and blue eyes huge with fright. As soon as he has stopped she moves to dismount, and I feel both moved and disquieted at her clumsy attempts to reach a stirrup that is too low for her, scrambling down all the way. The she runs toward me, her copper hair flying behind her and when she reaches me, I put up a hand in warning.

“Don’t come nearer! I’ve blood over me.”

She ignores this, getting down on her knees, lifting the hair away from my face, looking worriedly at my arms and legs.

“Are you hurt, my lord? Did they wound you?”

She has a tendency when nervous to revert to her old ways of calling me. But it doesn’t annoy me anymore; I find it amusing now. A smile is tugging at the corners of my mouth.

“Your dog is uncut. Don’t fret.”

As I think of getting up, she moves and sits on my lap, straddling me, making us almost of the same height. She’s trembling. She rests her forehead on mine, whispering.

“I was so afraid that they would kill you! I couldn’t bear the thought of it!”

An arm has entwined itself around my neck and I feel rooted to the ground. She’s stroking my hair and face again, and her mouth pursues and touches mine in a light brushing of lips at first. Then her lips part slightly and as I feel the moist underside of her plushy lips, a tremendous charge shoots through my whole body, making me shake hard. I’m breathless. I grab the back of her head, my fingers threading her soft hair, the other arm holding her body and feeling her small waist. She keeps kissing me, and I hear myself moaning like I’m sobbing; my mouth opens greedily and my tongue pushes at the parting of her lips, and she opens her mouth with a small gasp. I devour and taste her mouth and yet she still responds to this; small hands hold the nape of my neck and grasp my hair.

Then she rests her face against mine, her soft cheek stroking my burned side like a cat. My arms encircle her, holding her tight against me while we both regain our breath back, saying nothing. We stay still like this on this bloody road besides three corpses, both safe and still alive and I have never felt better anywhere else.  

_The sweetest thing there could be; I hadn’t known this before._


	6. To Oldtown

After the ambush on the road, I decided for us to keep to the woods as much as possible before reaching Highgarden.

When we arrive two days later, it feels unnerving to be part of the noise, crowds and smells of a city after the quiet of the country side and the scents of the woods. Highgarden, while being smaller than King’s Landing, has similar architecture, being of a compatible climate; but there are enough differences to it to know that we’re in an unknown city. Women’s garb is still lighter, with high fitted bodices and full skirts; a lot have on headscarves wrapped around their heads while their long hair flow from underneath it.

I’ve noticed that since entering the city gates, a dark cloud has crossed Sansa’s face and won’t leave it. While she’s walking besides me docilely enough, she has remained silent and her gaze has been restless, like she was searching for something. I’d told her that we would stop there only long enough to purchase food and lighter garments, and have found the market easily enough. Her mood has awakened in me the vat of anger that is ever lastly present there, and it’s starting to simmer and bubble ominously; I think I know the why of it. I stop near the entrance and look down at her.

“You’re longing for him, aren’t you?”

She startles at the question, a puzzled frown wrinkling her smooth forehead.

“For whom?”

I snort dismissively. “Don’t pretend with me girl. You know who I mean. Willas Tyrell, the one you thought you would marry.”

“I cannot long for a man I’ve never met,” she replies coolly with a haughty set to the way she holds her head.

“Why the long face then?” I growl.

“It was a dream for me to live here, having a safe life with the Tyrells. Now, because of politics and alliances, it’s not possible anymore. I’m leaving all that I’ve known behind. Please allow me to grieve about it, my lord.”

The way that she’s stated that, with the dignity and poise of a well bred lady makes me shut up, although I still feel unhappy. To regain my composure, I order her to remain at my side through the visit to the market, and she nods stiffly.

I start with the food supplies, the wine and my garments while leaving her purchases for the last stop. All the stalls here are built of wood, with long sheer white curtains in the entrances swaying in the breeze. We enter one for ladies’ garb, and I give her my coin pouch while retreating to the side, where I’ve parted the curtain a bit to watch the proceedings inside, as I don’t like the look of the seller, an older man with grey hair and a gold tooth.

I keep my eye on him as he doesn’t stop watching her while she chooses three dresses, in hues of blues and greens, a few coloured headscarves. After her selection has been put on the table, she takes out the pouch from a pocket but he stops her with a hand grasping her wrist. She tenses at this, trying to free herself, but he’s holding fast while an oily lecherous stretches his lips.

“Sweetling, what are you doing with such a rough and ugly man? Surely you deserve better. I would be as sweet as a lamb with you, and spoil you like you deserve it.”

“Please seller, tell me what I owe you so we can conclude this transaction. I have to go.”

“Don’t think that by fucking him that you’ll gentle him. He looks like a wild beast and will kill you one day.”

“Seller, you’re forgetting yourself. I’m a lady travelling with her sworn shield. Let me go before something happens.”

Now he’s tugging at her arm, and I come in the stall, swaggering up to him with a smirk on my face.

“Wise advice. Let the lady go.”

Before he has the time to open his mouth again, I unsheathe my dagger and stride to him behind his table, lifting him up by the front of his tunic, letting him dangle a bit while I show him the dagger. Her eyes have gone round with shock.

“Little man, do you see this dagger? Keep a watch on it, as when you don’t see it anymore, it’ll be buried in your fucking rotten heart. Then?”

He whimpers, and I let him down hard on his feet. While he’s profuse now with apologies, I cut him short to ask the price and pay him myself. After I’ve put the last of the purchases in my big leather bag, I find that he’s still trembling. _Good._ As I swing the pouch on my shoulder and turn around, I discover that she’s not in the stall anymore.

Emotions strong and hot envelop me swiftly from head to toes. A hard set to my face and heart pounding, I got out the stall, my gaze searching right and left through the passerby’s to find her. Then I spy her crossing the entrance to the market and running in the direction of a narrow alley. I growl and start running, and while I’m slowed down by the heaviness of the bag, my strides are long and people are giving me a wide berth. I reach the entrance to the alley in no time, finding her in the middle of it, having stopped and panting. I drop the bag on the cobbled stones and pin her to the wall by grasping her arms. Her blue eyes widen with fright and she’s trembling. I too am breathing heavily and take a few moments to regain my regular breathing. Then I lean down my face closer to hers.

“Hound, will you ever stop doing this? It scares me.”

“I don’t care,” I say through clenched teeth. “How do you think I felt when I found you gone? You could have been snatched by any fucking rat. Is this your way of dealing with reality, always running away from it?”

“I thought...I thought that you would kill him and the change that came over you... Like a beast, and you seem to enjoy it... I couldn’t stand it.”

“Would you have preferred him to have his way with you then?”

She lowers her head and starts sniffing. The madness is upon me again and it reminds me so much of King’s Landing that I release her from my grasp and let my arms fall; getting angry with her never worked and I should have learned it by now, but my temper often gets the better of me. I take several deep breaths to cool down the bubbling vat inside.

“Now little bird, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you back your things and some gold. I can even escort you to the Tyrells, as that’s what you want, throw yourself at their mercy for all I care. You want to get away from me that bad; you can.”

That makes her snap back her neck and look up at me in surprise.

“It’s not that, Sandor,” she replies haltingly. “It’s just that ... you scare me so much some time. Can you be less angry?”

I chuckle drily. “You’re asking a lot of me, girl. That’s in my nature.”

She inclines her head again. Small hands come up tentatively on my chest, fingers playing with the ridges of my armor, then climbing up even more hesitantly to rest on the sides of my neck, stroking the skin there and strands of my air. I gasp. I lower my head and kiss the crown of her head; then my thumb and index finger lift up her chin and the other arm encircles her body, pressing it to mine. I’m surrounded by the scent of her hair and can’t resist the lure. I lean down still further until our lips touch and I move mine over hers slowly, as if exploring an unpredictable territory. She kisses me back with that way that she has, with her lips slightly parted, cushiony and moist. As I feel the thrill again, I’m glad that she had never kissed Joffrey this way. As twisted as he was, he was still a boy with awakening desires and would certainly have enjoyed it _._ Her hands move from the sides of my neck and behind on my nape, the feather light touches making me shiver all over. I grunt and feel her mouth opening under mine as I thrust my tongue inside, and yet she responds again... I’m filled with wonder at the sweetness of this. I love the way her tongue strokes and circles mine slowly, enhancing the already unbearable pleasure, making me slow down to savor instead of devouring.

This time it is I who stop, as the sensations of it are getting to be too intense, and I keep looking intently at her, as if searching for an answer to my unnamed anguish.

“Sansa, I can’t breathe when you’re out of my sight. Don’t do this again.”

“Sandor,” she replies softly after a moment, as if she has read my thoughts. “I won’t fly away again; I’m quite resigned to my fate.”

This unnerves me more and makes my heart sink. “You make it sound like a death sentence.”

She gets flustered at this, resting her forehead against my armor, small fingers moving on my plated chest. When she speaks, her face still hidden, her voice has the tone of the little girl that I find so endearing.

“I’m sorry; I often find it hard to say what I mean with the right words. Please forgive me. So much has changed and I’m still confused. While I’m sometimes still scared by you, I’ve grown to care about you in a way I can’t explain. It’s like the boys that I’ve known, my brothers, my father, some knights that I liked have all been concentrated and merged into you, the man that you are.”

We both let out a big sigh at the same time; she for having said these things and I for feeling the constriction in my chest loosening. Then she dares to look up at me with turmoil in her blue eyes and I, the one who is older, just hold her in a way that I hope is reassuring. I whisper against her ear.

“While I’m not a lord like this Willas and can’t offer you things like he can, I can give you a life where you’ll be safe.”

*******

We get back on the road soon afterward. While I know that it’s risky, my instinct tells that as far away as we can get for this other city, the better it will be.

We feast on flaky meat pies and fruit this night, side by side in front of the fire. While it’s getting milder, we still need the fire for the light it gives us. As we finish and drink wine, leaning against a large tree, she turns her head and looks at me, looking embarrassed.

“You must think me stupid and submissive, my lord, for me not to have asked you where we are going.”

I shake my head. “No. It just shows that you trust me.”

“Oh. I know that when we arrive a Oldtown, we’ll be very near Dorne. Is that the destination?”

I chuckle at her expression of disquiet. “Fuck no. Have no fear of that. I don’t want to finish my life in that damn desert, with snakes and scorpions for company. It is said that the sun there is so hot and relentless that people have to travel at night, with veils on their faces to protect them from the sand and winds. And I have a feeling that they too will take part on these wars for the throne. And I’ve had enough of this.”

“Then?”

As I’m not sure how she’ll react to this, I take my time before replying.”I know a freighter’s ship captain. Thoren. We met when I was younger in the Lannister’s camps, and we’ve kept up a friendship for all these years. He’d sent me a raven, not long after the Blackwater battle, to tell me that he would be docking soon in King’s Landing. I met him, and one of the best in his crew, Booka, at a winesink in the harbor. I told him of my miscontent at King’s Landing, that I wanted a new life. I wasn’t well enough to travel then, and we discussed his plans. He was supposed to sail after to Sunspear, and then to Oldtown. If all goes well, we’ll meet him there, and sail away on his ship.”

Now her eyes have become bewildered and wider.

“Sail to where?”

“To the Summer Isles.”

“But... but it’s the end of the world! I don’t know much of it, except that the people have black skin and are said to be more primitive than us.”

“Not so, pretty bird. Booka comes from there, and he’s told me a lot that night about his islands. The climate is warm and even all the time, with extinct volcanoes, jungles and waterfalls. The food grows all year long and is plentiful, as for the fish and birds. And there beliefs are very different from ours, more natural and free. They have fewer rules and rejoice in life. And they’re not interested in games of throne.”

Her expression has changed from worry to wonder as she listened, and a tentative smile touches her mouth.

“This sounds marvellous, almost like paradise. This is not what I had expected you would tell me.” Then she giggles shyly.“ But I have a hard time imagining you there.”

It makes me laugh. “I’ll try. I’ll find something to occupy myself, as I don’t think I’ll lie down under palm trees all days long. They surely must have fights between them.”

This thought sobers me. I know my nature, the warrior inside me that won’t rest and will have a hard time with peace, however tired he’s right now of endless fighting.

I’ve lowered my head as I ponder on this, and feel a small hand covering mine. I raise my head to find her gazing at me with shining blue eyes, the way that I had always wished her to look at me. Now that she does it, I feel a tightening in my chest, as I’m apprehensive that I’ll do something to extinguish this light, to disappoint her and break this new trust she has in me. I failed so many times before.

I take her hand and lace my big fingers with her slender with ones, stroking them tentatively. I sigh deeply.

“I don’t scare you anymore?”

“Just a bit sometimes.”

She rests her head on my shoulder while our hands still stay clasped together, and I wonder at all of this. Not what I had planned or expected. But I’m discovering that I love this, the innocent touches, embraces and kisses, feeling like if I were the young man that I had never been, going about with his lady love, instead of the hard youth who had been impatient with the taking of his pleasures and whom whores were the only ones able to bear the sight of his face. But then the fates had not presented him with this gift of a heartbreakingly beautiful young girl who could smile at him and kiss him willingly.

*******

On one night, my dreams make me travel back in time, in bits and pieces like through a fog.

The Blackwater battle happens again, with the smells of fire, blood and my own despair. I find sanctuary in Sansa’s Stark bed, get angry when she refuses to look at me and leave with me; she sings and I cry. But I find no knights lurking in the halls and leave the Keep in a daze. Suddenly I’m riding with Arya Stark sitting in front of me, looking sullen and angry. It’s raining endlessly. Where the fuck are we, and what is she doing with me? Then I remember having been caught by some group of men, fighting in a dark cave and taking her to her mother for ransom money because I’ve no gold anymore. We seem to ride on and on, and I find myself gravely wounded, lying against a tree.

Then I find myself striding through the empty and quiet halls of the Red Keep, feeling a strong sense of premonition. Knights are pursuing Sansa Stark and I’m catching her in mid flight, hiding her in my room. We manage to escape through some cunning plan, racing through the night to embark on a cargo ship. Thoren’s ship... We cross the Narrow Sea and while being at our first port of call, Volantis, I visit a market with her and manage the day after to get in trouble and slay a lot of men at the bazaar. _Bazaar? What is that?_ We continue on the long journey across the Summer Sea. There are nights of delirious pleasures with Sansa; I’m holding her naked in my arms, in my bed. Then we arrive in Yiti, settling in the city of Yin. I buy a beautiful house by the sea, we live happily until I hear news about Westeros; about how she’s lost the rest of her family, and she gets very sick with grief. Fortunately, she gets better and I meet an unusual man at of one of my drinking places, Jaqen H’gard. He has travelled with Arya Stark in their quest to find her sister, and they are reunited again.

I wake up feeling much disoriented, not knowing where I am anymore. I find myself lying down in a forest on a bedroll next to Sansa’s Stark while the dawn is breaking. I try to breathe calmly as to regain my wits, and even pinch myself to be assured that I’m awake. I see Stranger tied to a tree and snoozing peacefully on his hooves. I get up carefully as not to disturb her and also to keep me from falling asleep again, lest these mad dreams continue.

I sit leaning against a tree, gazing at the still pond in the forest. While the first dream is getting hazier still in my wakened state, the second remains clear: so vivid and detailed and involving my life. Or lives... The dreams had such a long span, as I had lived every moment of them with smells, sensations, pains, pleasure. I wonder if too much drink has started to rot my brain and is sending me into madness. But I’ve drunk less in the last months, not feeling a raging thirst like before.

Then I remember somebody telling me that a new fork would open in the path that I was walking on and the memories of the fortune teller and the Lannister feast come back. That feels real... The fork that she spoke of seemed not to have appeared in the first dream, or had I missed it? In the second it had appeared earlier, but with events happening differently. And in this life now, it came much later, but it still came, unlike in the first one, but again with changes in my world. I certainly would have liked to be this Hound who had saved his gold, unlike I who had spent it all on drink, whoring and gambling, because I didn’t care about the future or if I lived or died. Had something which I had done or not done affected these different outcomes? Why had I dreamed of this if I had no control over it? Maybe these dreams came to me as a warning for the future. I’ll keep that in mind, but for the moment, these questions have started to make my thoughts twist in never ending knots and I shake my head to chase them away.

I hear a rustle of fabric and see her getting up and standing over me with a concerned expression in her still sleepy eyes.

“Is something wrong?”

I smile reassuringly, shaking my head negatively, and she turns a fold of her skirt brushes my face; she walked away to go relieve herself.

I call out: “Be careful though and don’t stay away too long.”

I can’t wait to leave. These woods seem to be imbued with a powerful magic of some kind, and I find it quite disturbing. Magic is not for men, or at least for this Hound.

*******

We seem to have earned another period of peace as the rest of the journey to Oldtown spends itself uneventfully.

We arrive near the middle of the afternoon through yet another sunny day, close to the meeting with Thoren’s ship, which is probably already docked in the harbor. But I know that Thoren usually spends more than a day to deliver goods and to buy new ones, so I’ll just check later if his ship is in and send a raven to advise him of my arrival on the morrow. For the moment, I have too many things to prepare for the departure; renting a room for the night at a nice inn, selling the horse – unfortunately, I’ll not take Stranger with me, not wanting to subject him to the confinement of the hold for the sea journey – and more purchases. I want to make this last day in Westeros special for Sansa.

I leave Sansa at our room at the inn for my errands; I’ve spied both Thoren and his ship in the harbor, and have told him I would come back next morning. Feeling a wrench, I manage to get a very handsome price for Stranger and let him go to a new master who likes the challenge of a magnificent spirited horse.

When I get back, we got out for a walk through the city and its market. I wish that we could stay longer, as this is the oldest city of Westeros and I appreciate the bravery of the first men who built it, the dangers which it had encountered, the landmarks of thousands and thousands of years. It is also a city for scholars, with the Citadel having made masters for millennia. I tell Sansa of all of this as we walk, and on impulse I take her hand and hold it. She stops and looks up at me in surprise.

“Why are you doing this? Nobody else holds hands while walking.”

“So what?”

She smiles shyly. “You’re right. Here I am, still seeing things so narrowly. I’m really not an adventurous person.”

This time I buy her five dresses at the market, in silk and gauzy fabrics with lavish embroidery on the bodice, sleepwear, sandals and gold earrings. I love pleasing her like this, creating this excitement in her. Throughout our short journey, she has smiled more than in the years in King’s Landing.

We take baths in turns at the inn’s bath house and eat a nice and spicy meal in its common room. I drink a flagon of red sour wine and she drinks a cup of golden one. I ask her if she has even been at sea and she shakes her head negatively.

“Well, neither have I. I hope that we’ll not get seasick.”

“Please don’t expect the worse, Sandor. The Summer Sea must be warmer and quieter than the Shivering Sea or the Narrow Sea. I’m sure that it doesn’t have storms like up north.”

I nod, although I don’t agree. She resists as usual what she judges to be a darker way of thinking but which is usually just a realistic view on things. She hasn’t heard of the southern storms at sea which can happen as the colder winds up north meet the warmer ones here when autumn starts and winter is coming. What would it matter that she knew of them? Nothing could be done to stop it if one erupted. But since she doesn’t know of these storms, I prefer to hope that there won’t be any while we sail further south and not create in her the apprehension of one. I want to keep her happy as long as possible.

When we finally retire in the room, I lock the door and spread out a blanket on the floor alongside it. When I had asked for an extra blanket, the servant girl had looked at me as if I were mad, the climate being so warm here.

Sansa, who is sitting on the bed, looks at me with a frown.

“What are you doing? Are you sleeping there on the floor?”

I grin. “Yes, I’ll be your guard dog for the night. If somebody tries to come in, they’ll have to step over me before.”

“But... The bed is big enough for two. We slept besides each other in the forest.”

I press my lips together. She examines me with puzzled eyes, not understanding the change of mood and the hard expression on my face.

“But Sandor... You’ll not be comfortable on the floor.”

“Then? Leave me be. Why persist in this?”

“Because I care about your comfort.”

This consideration again... What a sweet girl she is. I sigh deeply and move toward the bed. I remove my armor, the weapons and put it all on the floor. She looks down at them with a mischievous smile.

“We could put your sword between us.”

This makes me throw back my head and erupt in gales of laughter, making me lose the tension. Ah, that little copper head is still full of songs. I smile down at her.

“What is not said in those songs is how uncomfortable and dangerous it can be to sleep with a sharp blade. One wrong move and you’re cut.”

“Oh.”

“No sword is needed to protect you from me. Except when I’m drunk, as you remember. Then stay the hell away from me.”

I say this in a harsh tone, and she gasps. I don’t like dredging up these memories again, but what had happened on that green night came from a part of me and I want to protect her from it now. It has sobered her, and I wait from some kind of assent or protest before I make a move to get in the bed. She just puts the covers up to her chin, watching me with big blue eyes. So I slide in next to her.

“Just put your hand on my chest and I’ll be as happy as a dog can be.”

She turns on her side while I remain on my back. When I feel her hand landing on my chest, I cover it with my own and feel a lump in my throat form, some stinging in my eyes. Then I blow out the candle and drift softly into slumber as I hear her regular breathing lulling me to safety.

 


	7. Mysterious Passengers on the Crossing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd never foreseen when I started that series that I would need to write so much about life on a ship, for a person unwilling to travel on them!

When we leave the inn on the next morning, the weather gives me a feeling of foreboding. It’s grey, misty and quite cooler. We have put on our cloaks with the hoods on our heads to protect us against the fine cold drizzling. I carry on my shoulder the bulging and heavy leather bag and hold her hand with my free one. We don’t have far to walk as I had chosen an inn close to the harbor.

When we are close to the ship, I take down my hood so Thoren will recognize me and help her ascend the ladder and get on the deck. Thoren is waiting for us as the crew is busy with their preparations for departure. When he spies us, his face is split in a big smile, and he shows us the way to his cabin. I dump the bag gratefully on the floor and we sit down around a small table, warming our hands around cups of hot spiced wine. Sansa looks pale and subdued, and as soon as we have spoken a bit with the captain and told the tale, I get up to show her our cabin on the upper level from the captain’s own. When I move to lift up the bag, Thoren signals me.

“Don’t bother, dog. I’ll have the cabin boy bring it to your cabin.”

I grin. “I don’t think he’ll be able to.”

He frowns skeptically and tries to lift it, groaning with effort. He drops it back down.

“By the seven, what do you have in that? A body?”

I chuckle and heave it on my shoulder. I signal to Sansa to stay at the bottom of the stairs while I ascend them, open the door and throw the pouch in. Then I go down the stairs and bring her near the railing so we can watch the shore line receding from our view. I can feel her trembling, and when I lift her face by the chin to gaze in it, I see that she’s crying. I lower my head down and touch the tears with the tips of my fingers.

“Don’t be afraid. I know that this is one bleak morning to leave, but things will settle.”

I kiss the crown of her head and she tried to be brave, smiling through her tears. My words of reassurance have sounded hollow to me, though. Because of love, I have fallen into the trap of empty promises to keep fear at bay. While there are no gusts of wind yet, the rain is starting to fall harder and the sea is getting rougher. Her face has gotten paler yet.

“Sandor,” she says in a tremulous tone, “does it bother you if I go lie down for a while? I feel strange.”

I escort her to the cabin, staying behind her in case she slips on the wet stairs. There are two doors at the landing, one for each cabin. The cabin is bigger than in my dreams, with no walls separating the chamber from the sitting room part. I show her the side door which leads to our privy. She sits on the bed.

“I have to go talk to the captain, or do you want me to stay with you a bit?”

“No, thank you Sandor; I’ll just rest.”

I leave with a heavy heart, anticipating what will come. The rough sea is increasing the roll of the ship, making it heave up and down. While I feel like usual, I know that it has already started to affect her by the lack of colour on her face and her pinched mouth.

When I arrive in Thoren’s cabin, he greets me with a with a cheerful expression.

“Then?”

I sit down heavily on the bench.

“Not so well I’m afraid. She’s shook from leaving, and now with the higher waves, she’s already starting to be unwell. This something that I cannot protect her from! Seven fucking hells! I need something to fortify me.”

I gulp down half of the wine, sighing through my teeth. Thoren’s face has turned sober and he drinks too.

“Not going as well as I would have wanted too. There’s a storm coming, as you guessed. That’ll make it hard going for a couple of days. Still willing to be my acting first officer? I’ll need your help badly, if you don’t get sick yourself. Even some sailors can get affected by a bad one.”

“I’ll do it. I have some experience now on a ship, so you don’t need to teach me anything. I’ll get on it.”

He gives me a puzzled glance. “You never told me this; that you worked on a ship. How could you have been able to, when you have been sworn shield to the Prince for so long?”

“Never mind, it’s too long a story for now. Just trust me.”

“Another thing. Both of you are not the only passengers on the ship. There are already two of them in the cabin next to yours. They came in last night, and I think that they too want to travel ... discretely. He paid well.”

The wind starts to pick up in the afternoon, the rain falling into great sheets of water. Moving around on the slippery deck gets hazardous, as the sea is really churning now. The ship groans mightily, and I try to be everywhere as things are turning chaotic, the men shouting and equipment breaking. I see a wave that is so high that it’s dwarfing the ship, and I think that we’re done for, but it just gets under the cock and brings us high up in a mighty heave, then we drop down again. And I had thought that fire burning everywhere was hell!

I make my way to our cabin, miserable and wet as a dog. When I don’t spy her in it, I get frantic and open the door to the privy, finding her huddled on the floor with her head lowered in the hole. She’s retching miserably. I take off my wet clothes and put on dry ones, and go sit on the floor behind her, putting my arms around her trembling body. I hold her hair away from her face as she retches up again, and when she cries piteously after being done, I feel my chest constrict with pain. I lift her up from the floor and carry her to the bed. Rummaging through the leather pouch, I find a night dress; then I bring the bucket with a wet cloth. I unlace her dress and turn my back while she undresses and puts on the nightgown. Laying her down on the bed, I rub the cool cloth over her face, neck and hands. I pull the coverlet over her.

“Sandor... do you think that we’ll die?”

I have to ponder for a moment to give her a fair answer. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. The captain wouldn’t have left if he had seen the signs of a bad storm; or else we would have already gone under. Just try to rest.”

“I’m not sure if I should stay in the bed. What if I get sick again?”

I show her the bucket and put it on the floor next to her side of the bed and get under the covers myself. I gaze at her. While her chin is trembling, I can see that she’s trying hard to be strong, and I put my hand on her forehead and stroke her hair.

“Little bird, I would wish to spare you this and be sick in your place; but could you replace me as the first officer?”

It makes her giggle for a bit, and she turns her head to look at me.

“Thank you for being so kind to me.”

I snort dismissively and watch her until I see her slip into slumber, then I fall asleep immediately after, exhausted and aching all over.

On the morning, the storm has calmed down, but the sky is still gray and a light rain is falling. As if there weren’t enough water around us, in the ship and soon on me. Before leaving the cabin, I open the window and put a blanket on the floor underneath the window to absorb water if rain comes in. Some fresh air will do her good.

I get as soaking wet as yesterday, and we work hard together on bailing and repairs, and the worst appears to be over.

Except for Sansa... While she had slept soundly – as I woke up the bucket on her side was empty – unfortunately, she resumed being sick as she woke up, and refused throughout the day taking any kind of nourishment. On the next day, as the sky is starting to clear up and show up pieces of blue and the sea becomes calm again, she is still seasick, and I’m feeling at my wits ends. She’s getting thinner already and her eyes look huge and haunted in her white face. While she doesn’t complain, I can see how miserable and despairing she feels. She won’t let me hold her to comfort her, as the evening before when I held her after making her drink some water the nausea had came on soon after and she had been sick on me. While I had said that I didn’t fucking care about that, she had felt too ashamed and mortified to let me come near her again.

She often huddles on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chin and rocking. The cabin boy, restored now to good health, has changed the bed linens and has picked up along with it the growing pile of wet and soiled garments to wash it all.

On my midday break in Thoren’s cabin, I voice my concerns.

“I don’t fucking understand it. On the other ship’s crossing, she never got sick.”

Thoren is giving me one of his uneasy glances which he’s started to give me since my first mention of having been on a ship. While he’s seen that I know my way around a ship, he cannot understand how I have acquired it, knowing that this is my first time sailing. And I cannot explain it to him without sounding mad.

He takes a drink from his ale cup. “Seasickness is a mysterious thing, dog. You, who are not a sailor and never felt the call of the sea, have natural sea legs. Some don’t suffer from it for years, and suddenly they get it. Some recover from in it on a ship and get their sea legs.”

“Seven hells, I’d like that to happen to her.” I’m growling.

He chuckles knowingly. “Got it bad, don’t you, dog? Never seen you like this before, all in knots over a pretty maid.”

I bristle. “So? What is wrong with that?”

He sighs. “Nothing, lad. I’m happy for you that the Gods decided to give you this gift. And a special one who’s able to see beyond these scars. Don’t worry, nobody dies of seasickness. But do go see Booka. He has some healer’s abilities and may be able to help.”

I go down the stairs to the hold, and before I’m even near the entrance, I already smell the terrible stench that is floating there like a noxious cloud. In normal times, it’s still bad but I can smell that some of the crew got the sickness too. Even I could lose my meal over this. I grimace and try to breathe through my mouth.

Booka is sitting at his table, looking serene and unaffected by this. When he spies me bending to go through the entrance, he gets up and smiles at me knowingly.

“Master Hound, you look like somebody who is badly in need of something strong.”

He opens a door to the cupboard behind, taking out a dragon glass vessel with strange marking on it, As soon as I spy it; I put up my hand and growl my refusal.

“No! None of that!”

He burst out laughing in great guffaws and I laugh too. When we sober off, I spy an unusual glint in his eyes, intensity to his gaze, and a pricking on my skin raises goose bumps.

“You remember it too... “I say in a low tone. “This same ship, but on another crossing in the east. The night I got drunk with the rum.”

“Yes,” he answers simply.

“Did it come to you in a dream?”

“Yes. You killed a crewman when he attacked the lady, liked the music that I played. You disembarked in Yin and I joined you there with the eunuch.”

I’ve become very still while my heart is pounding. “What is it then? How can we dream of lives that we’ve not truly lived?”

“Some of my people believe that there are opening to other worlds which are the same as this one, with the same people in them; but in each of these worlds, people make different decisions than the ones you would make here. Some changes are small while others big, affecting the length of your life and the nature of your fate. Since it is impossible to go into these worlds, the only way to them comes in dreams.”

And then I know finally that I’ve not been descending into madness. A great sense of relief fills me. With Booka’s explanation, these bewildering dreams now make sense, with my memories of the fortune teller’s predictions and those of the first dream, where I had seemed to die young.

“And the dreams can serve as warnings, maybe?”

“Or to learn something new; not to repeat the same mistakes.”

I reflect on this for a moment. This is strong magic, but not the kind that men can control. My mind has been settled on this, but not on the more urgent matter.

“I didn’t come for drink. The little bird is suffering from seasickness. Can it be helped?”

He points to a teapot on the table that I hadn’t noticed before.

“This. It’s ginger tea. The cook in the galley has scores of containers infused with the root. It may work. Take this one, and have her take very small sips of it. Wait a few minutes; then give her another one. If she keeps it down, it will work.”

I nod my head in thanks and bring the teapot to our cabin. She’s sitting up in bed, dozing, and when she hears my footsteps, she opens her eyes and looks at me wanly. I pour the hot liquid in a cup and bring it with me, sitting on the side of the bed besides her. As I bring it near, she averts her face, shaking her head and I persist in keeping it close. As she finally inhales the fragrant steam, her eyes widen.

“What is this? It smells wonderful.”

“Cure for what ails you. Try it. Small mouthful though. Slowly.”

She takes it gingerly between her hands and does as she’s bid. After minutes of careful drinking, the cup is empty and she lets out a big sigh of contentment, putting her hand on her stomach.

“That feels good Sandor. My stomach is all warm inside and is settling. Thank you.”

A big burp comes out invontarily and she puts her hand on her mouth, blushing. I chuckle and my insides too are calming nicely. I get up to fetch the teapot and as I bend to deposit it on the surface of the nightstand, a white hand lands on my cheek and strokes it. I capture it and kiss it, squeezing it before I let go.

“You’ll go on, don’t fret. I’ll have the cabin boy bring you more tea later. Rest. I have to go.”

As I close the door, the sky has cleared completely and the sun is shining. It feels like a good omen. Joy, such an unfamiliar feeling for me, wants to burst out. I smile at the sky. To think that I, who didn’t believe in Gods and good fortune, feel hope now, in powers stronger than I who can be merciful sometimes.

When I go back later to the cabin to retire for the night, I find her in a much better state. While she has still not eaten yet, she’s managed to wash and change by herself, and some colour has returned to her cheeks. She smiles sweetly at me as I pull the covers and slide between the sheets. I take her head between my hands and kiss it; her hair, her face, her mouth and settle down with her body tucked in mine.

On the next morning, I’m sitting on a barrel on the deck and drinking a cup of wine, looking up at the door to our cabin, wishing that she’ll be strong enough to come out for fresh air and sunshine. My gaze slides to the door further left, and while I had wondered at first why I hadn’t seen anybody coming out of it once, the storm had made it slip from my mind.

Now I’m wondering again. There’s been such an air of mystery about it. Will they come out, or are they seasick too? As if my intent gaze on the door had been calling to it, it opens, and as soon as the man closes it behind him and start his descent on the stairs, I have recognized him already. Jaqen H’gard! It the same man, tall and moving with a lithe grace, his long hair a mix of white and dark red, with large grey eyes, which are paler than mine, sheer as ice. These eyes have found me, and as he walks in my direction, I can see that while being as handsome as before, he looks a bit thinner and pale. I get up and lean on the railing to await his arrival.

While in the dreams of the other life I had felt a certain affinity with him - with both of us being killers - but this time I feel myself bristling instinctively with an unknown hostility toward him. The smile that he gives as he stands in front of me makes me clench my fists.

“Ah, the Hound finally,” he says in his suave, soft voice.

“Yes, finally. And you’re Jaqen H’gard, formely of the Free City of Lorath, on a quest with Lady Arya Stark to find her long lost sister.”

That throws him off. He had certainly not expected that. I experience a malevolent joy at seeing him loose his usual cool, unflappable manner. He retreats abruptly as if I had hit him, a frown marring his smooth forehead. I grin, showing a lot of teeth.

“The man has heard many things about the Hound, but not that he was a seer.”

I can feel a surly expression growing on my face.

“Where were you? I’ve not seen you until now.”

He sighs and inclines his head gracefully, almost humbly. “A man was incapacitated in his cabin until of this morning. A man doesn’t understand, as he’s travelled many times and has not had this sickness before. But the ginger tea cured him, and here he is.”

He smiles again, having regained his composure back. Mine is deteriorating still.

“Where is Arya Stark? Was she sick too?”

“No. The girl tended to the man, and is resting now.”

“Oh yes, Arya, your soulmate.”

An expression of bewildered disdain pinches his features. “What is the Hound speaking of? This is a child, of no interest to a man in this manner.”

“Why did you help her then?”

“A man admires this child, feeling affinities with her. A man had given her a coin, in case she needed him again. She travelled to Braavos, and he decided to help her in her search.”

“And how did you find me this time?”

He frowns again, and I’m enjoying the power that I have now to fluster him. He doesn’t enjoy it, obviously, as this is a man not used to bewilderment; his mouth thins and his eyes become icier.

“A man finds a Hound unhinged. Maybe because of a lady? He must feel out of his depth with her. How can he think that a lady would feel anything but gratitude for a brute of a man who reeks of sweat and wine? This won’t last.”

Seven hells, he’s hit well this time. He’s exactly the kind of man that I don’t want Sansa to meet: handsome, cultured, and refined – the opposite of me; and more than capable of protecting her. Also, he smells good, like I remember - even his hair gives out wafts of sweet scent. And while I, having been preoccupied on more urgent matters, I had let thoughts of washing be chased from my mind. My teeth are clenching and gnashing.

“These things are no fucking business of yours, faceless man. Then?”

He laughs mockingly at my roughness. “The man and the girl travelled back to Westeros; heard of the disappearance of a valuable hostage at the Red Keep and of a certain sworn shield. A man thought with the Hound having survived so long in this nest of vipers, that he would be clever enough not to use the expected route. The man and the girl followed the southern trail. The Hound, being taller and bigger than most men and with his distinctive scars is easy to remember. There were sightings of him in Highgarden and when there were others in Oldtown, the man knew that he was very near. A man saw him in Oldtown’s harbor, speaking with the captain of this ship, and the rest was easy.”

By the seven hells, they were following not far from behind us, and I had never known it! And he had been close in Oldtown, and I had never felt him. To think that this man was shadowing me makes my skin crawl. He is the most dangerous man that I’ve ever met, being more than a match for me, and I don’t doubt that he’s my adversary now, even though I can’t fathom why.

‘If your mission was completed, why did you come on the ship? You could have left Arya there and left. Why didn’t you? Am I your next target?”

He chuckles. “’No.”

Some instinct makes me turn my gaze to the door to our cabin. It opens and then out comes Sansa Stark. She has put on an embroidered green silk dress, with a matching scarf that she has wound on her head in the manner of the desert people, with her copper hair flowing down on her back. She’s wearing sandals, and she’s descending carefully, her eyes searching below. She looks so beautiful in this garb, reminding me once again of the pretty birds of the Southern Isles. My chest expands and constrict at this sight. I swallow down the lump in my throat, and feel something intense coming off from the man beside me, something that raises my hackles. He has gasped, and I turn my head to look at him.

He’s become very still. His gaze is riveted on Sansa, who has paused in the stairs and is still looking for me. His gray eyes have widened and the hunger that has filled them is spreading on his face, making his features appear harder and his mouth fuller, the lips parted. Now I understand why he has stayed on the ship. He hadn’t spied only me in Oldwtown.

My eyes narrow and I growl at him, advancing on him. He laughs in an insouciant and careless way. Then her voice calling my name breaks the spell and I turn to look in its direction. She has started to run towards me, and I feel the urge to tell her to slow down, as I’m afraid that she’ll trip and fall in these whimsy sandals and in her weakened state. But this is how I love to see her; her sweet, spontaneous and childlike nature manifesting itself freely. I forget everything else except her luminous smile as she reaches us and flings herself on my chest. I lift her up in my arms and laugh, while she hangs on to my shoulders with her hands. _My smell_ doesn’t seem to bother her.

“Sandor, it worked! I was hungry and managed to eat bread and fruit, and I feel good now!”

While I lower her down on her feet, I watch the expression on Jaqen’s face change; he looks like he’s eaten something bitter and his jaw has tensed. _She hasn’t even noticed him...._ Then I look at her upturned face and lean my head down until these sweet moist lips touch mine, making my pulse race, and I open my mouth and taste hers while keeping my glowering eyes opened to glare at Jaqen, warning him of my claim, of her belonging to me. His eyes glower back at me, and then I hear another voice, this one belonging to the little she wolf, Arya Stark.

“Sansa! What are you doing, kissing the Hound!”

 


	8. Troubled Waters

**Sandor**

 

I release Sansa from my embrace and she turns around swiftly in the direction of the stairway. A small figure in boy’s clothes and short brown hair is going down the stairs rapidly, and Sansa’s eyes widen as she recognises her little sister through the unfamiliar garb. She mouths Arya’s name silently, the colour draining from her face. Spying Jaquen’s suddenly concerned gaze on her, I just have time to grab her around the waist before she falls in a dead faint.

I turn her around and lift her on my shoulder while Arya has reached us and is jumping around me like an excited pup. The crew is staring at us as I stride to the stairway and go up the stairs, closely followed by Arya and Jaqen. I open the door to our cabin and turn around to Jaqen to stay him with my hand. He inclines his head graciously, and I lay down Sansa on the bed with a pillow propped up under her head.

Arya sits at the foot of the bed, looking worriedly at her sister, then turning her head, her face get a stormy expression, and I put up a hand as she opens her mouth.

“Now’s not the time to fight with me. Your sister’s still weak from the sickness and doesn’t need further excitement. If you’re not happy at my being here, just complain about it to me afterwards, and shut up about it now.”

I point my finger at her to further emphasise my warning. She looks up at me sullenly, and then we hear Sansa coming about, sitting up in bed and gazing at Arya in wonder.

“Arya...” she murmurs. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Little bird, are you alright now?”

“Yes, thank you Sandor.” Then she opens her arms to Arya, who crawls up to her and puts her head on Sansa’s chest, sobbing softly.

I leave the cabin, finding Jaqen outside lounging nonchalantly against the wall. He smiles when I join him on the landing.

“The Hound would make a good father, authoritative and firm.”

My jaw hardens. “Is eavesdropping part of your duties?”

“A man hears everything.”

“A man will now go down the stairs, as I wish to have them left in peace.”

I go down first and he follows. I choose to in the direction of the bow, where the bench that she and I used to sit on so often is, and where it is more secluded from the crew. I have felt on my back their gazes follow us curiously. Seven hells, this day, which has brought back again the sun and a nice breeze, has also brought a lot of complication in my life. I realise mournfully now that I won’t have Sansa only for myself anymore and I wish that our journey to Oldtown had lasted longer. While I’m glad for her that Arya has found her, I remember how difficult my time with the she wolf had been. And both sisters are so different: Sansa, feminine and ladylike while Arya had always been a risk taker and preferred swords over marriage. I know , from some hints that Arya had given me in the other life that their relationship as siblings had never been easy, and I hope that there finding themselves together again won’t bring the old discord.

And now him... As he leans against the railing gracefully, I know of which animal he reminds me of; a red viper, elusive and lethal. I lean against the railing too, facing him.

“Don’t you have any duties to attend to with your guild?”

He sighs through his nose dismissively. “A man took leave from them to attend to this quest. He can take more time now, as there are others to take his place, as skilled as he is. A man feels that he has made a Hound unhappy with his presence.”

He’s smiling again in this way which unsettles me; the ambiguity of it making it hard to know if it’s mocking or amiable. And I distrust someone who smiles all the time like he does.

My voice turns harsh and menacing. “I’ve seen the way that you look at her. I warn you: don’t try to take her from me. She’s mine.”

He laughs mockingly at this. “A lady cannot be possessed by the likes of the Hound, either by force or obligation or gratitude. She doesn’t belong to him like an object.”

“Spare me your hypocrisy. You’re a man too. You want the same thing, except you’d do it with more stealth and with your pretty words. And I’ve not forced her to do anything; she’s here willingly.”

“But the lady will never willingly open her thighs to the Hound. He must know this.”

“And you think that she will do it for you?”

He lifts his chin haughtily, almost disdainfully, but he’s not deceiving me with this. I can spy the hard challenge in his gray eyes. I come closer with my own gaze boring at him, my lips thinning, showing some teeth.

“The Hound could get rid of the man,” he suggest in a soft low tone. “The man is shorter and much lighter than the Hound. A man would be easy to throw overboard.”

I give a bark of laughter. “I doubt it would be that easy.”

A narrow and long knife suddenly appears to point at my throat, but my dagger has come out at the same moment, and our blades meet and clash together, the metal grinding with the force of both our grasps on them. Our gray eyes meet above our crossed blades, intent and cold, and we lower and sheathe them back in simultaneously. Jaqen erupts into laughter while I sigh through my teeth.

“It will be a challenging fight. One day.” Then he turns around and walks slowly in the direction of his cabin. There’s a group of men who are standing still, having watched us with wide eyes and expressions avid for bloodshed. I swagger to them with a snarl on my face.

“Somebody hungry for a fight? I’m warmed up. Let him come then.”

They look uneasily at me and then start to break up.

“No? Too bad. Return to your work, you bunch of fucking rats. Enough time has been lost with your gawking.”

I spy Booka among them and signal for him to join me. This time, I choose to sit on the bench and invite him to do the same. For once, he’s not grinning, as he follows with sober eyes Jaqen’s retreating silhouette.

He sighs. “A snake, that man.”

I look pointedly at him. “Do you remember him from the other crossing?”

He nods. “Yes, he’s like the other time but different somehow, more threatening.”

“Because in the other life, he was attached to Arya Stark in a different manner; now he’s smitten with her sister. That’s why he’s on the ship now, he saw her in Oldtown.”

Booka shakes his head with a gravity which only confirms my own misgivings; for this good natured and insouciant man to react this way is indicative of a serious matter indeed. We stay like this for a few minutes, each of us reflecting; then an idea comes up in my mind, giving me some fresh hope.

“I think I’ve found out the usefulness of these dreams now. While the eunuch is not there with us, I remember all of his teachings. I would like us to start practicing them and train early every morning, before our duties start.”

Now Booka is beaming, and offers me a large grin. “I would like that too, master Hound. And maybe we’ll master them faster, after having learned of them before!”

I hadn’t thought of that. Clever Booka, a man of many talents and surprising facets.

 

**Sansa**

 

Arya is lying down on the bed across from me. I’m holding her head and upper body in my arms, which are resting against my chest. She’s sobbing hard and me tears are flowing freely too on my face; but mine are tears our joy and relief. A gaping hole has been filled inside of me; my little sister, so boyish, whom I had found insufferable with her lack of regard of all things ladylike and so annoying in her fits of temper, is back again in my life. And only now do I feel our bond and how much I cherish her, regardless of our differences. She’s found me again... I cry gratefully.

After a while, our tears dry, and Arya shifts and lays her head down on my lap, I can see that there was more to her tears than joy. Her big eyes are full of torment as they gaze into mine, and finally it’s too much for her and she averts them, hiding her face against my belly.

“Sansa.... how can you look at me like this?” she asks, her voice muffled.

“What do you mean sweetling? I’m so happy to see you!”

“If you knew what I have done, while we were separated... You didn’t like me before; now you’ll hate me.”

These words hurt, because they are partly true. I sigh and start to stroke her hair gently.

“I was young then, rigid and prim. I thought I knew how life should happen and how people should behave, like in the songs. But life at court taught me different.”

Then I tell her what had happened after our father was executed; the lies, the constant beatings, the contempt from everybody, and I trying to hang on to my romantic vision of the world. I told her about how the Hound had tried to help me, and about the escape.

“He had said on the night of the Blackwater battle that he wanted to keep me safe, and that he would kill anybody who would try to hurt me again. He wanted me to leave with him but I refused. When I escaped later he caught up to me on the road. I didn’t want him at first to travel with me, he scared me so much, but what choice did I have? There were no gallant knights to save me like I had dreamed of. Then I grew used to him and started to appreciate him.”

She turns her head at this and gazes at me, the turmoil and shock evident in her face.

“But Sansa, you were kissing him! How you, a lady, could stand to do that?”

I smile gently at her, thinking that I too would have been shocked at this only a few months ago.

“I’m not the same as I was before. I like it. I’ve flowered, and am growing into a woman. These urges are normal.”

“But with him!” She still looks mutinous. “He’s a bad man and he’s ugly with his burned face. From where I stood, I saw only the scarred half of his face, and he looked like a monster that was devouring you!”

“I couldn’t bear to look at his face for a long time, but now it’s changed.”

“I’ll never do it, kiss a man and all that, even if he is handsome!” She pauses and lowers her voice. “Has he forced you to... to do more?”

“No. He has treated me well. Try to see him differently. He’s more than just a killer and a warrior, more than what you’d seen of him at King’s landing. He even bought me a lot of beautiful gowns!”

She snorts at this, but I can see the smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. “That would get to you, wouldn’t it? Gowns! The way to your heart!”

We share a mischievous glance and laugh together like little girls with a secret. It feels so good to still be able to do this. Arya sits up and moves besides me, resting her back against the head of the bed. Her head is bowed, and I see her fingers fretting together while her chin has started to quiver. I know that she’s afraid to tell me what has happened since we last saw each other. I decide to help her start with something easier.

“Please tell me about the man who brought you here. Who is he?”

She tells me that he was a prisoner of the night guard to be brought to the Wall to serve as a black brother, along with two others. Yoren, a black brother, had spotted her in the crowd on the day of our father’s execution; he had spared her from the sight of his head been cut off. Then he had brought her with him, cut off her hair and had her disguised as a boy. They were supposed to travel to the Wall to our half brother Jon, but were attacked by the Brave Companions and brought as prisoners to Harrenhal. Arya had saved the life of the prisoners and Jaqen H’gard had killed two men of her choosing, in exchange for having saved his life and those of the other two. She has tricked him into helping her and her friends escape from Harrenhal. Then they had been captured again by another faction, The Free Men without Banners. They had promised her to be delivered to our mother at Riverrun, but it hadn’t happened and she had fled to the Saltpans, buying her passage with the coin which Jaqen had given her, and found him in Braavos.

“But that’s not the worst,” she says hotly. I killed a boy and men with Needle, and I was glad of it. I’m full of hate.”

But her eyes are full of untold pain. This tale has shocked me, and I can’t help but to start to cry again. She gets agitated at this, bouncing on the bed with her hands clenching into fists.

“I knew that you couldn’t take it, I knew it!” The rawness of her voice pains me still. I try to stop sniffling and regain my composure, so she can understand.

“It’s not that dearest. I’m just so sad that you were so alone, so much in danger that you had to kill to survive. Thanks the gods that you were able to defend yourself. And you being even younger than I... Look at me now.”

She looks at me with incredulity and bewilderment in her face, not having expected this response. Then anger leaves her and she starts to cry again. I take her trembling body in my arms once again and rock her gently.

A lot of things are becoming clearer to me now. Having spent so much time with the Hound is helping me now understand her; seeing him in her. She’s like a reflection of how he must have been at her age, how he grew up to become so bitter and angry. Maybe there’s a chance for her to heal since she’s still so young yet; she has me now again, and the Hound to protect us both, a chance at a new life. And I understand too why she and Sandor are at odds: they so alike, both in experiences and temperament.

I’m so happy though that at the end, she had managed to attract a protector; this tall slender man whom I had only a glimpse of on the deck. I think that I’ll have to speak to him sometime to thank him for what he’s done for Arya.

We’re both so spent that we fall asleep together like this on my bed, and we must have slept for a long time, as when s sound of heavy footsteps wake me, dusk has fallen, and I look up to see Sandor gazing at us through hooded eyes. Arya wakes up too, and upon spying him, disentangles herself from me and jumps off the bed and scoots out before I have any chance to react. Bewildered, I look at the closed door and then at Sandor, whose expression has turned surly, which makes me feel more flustered.

I sit on the side of the bed and remove the scarf. Then trying to put order to my disheveled state helps me buy time and avoid his gaze which I’m sure is stormy. It has been a while since I’ve felt like this about him, but I feel too vulnerable now to face one of his darker moods. I feel the side of the bed sink from his weight as he sits down, and I get up to smooth the folds of my gown. Then I hear his exasperated sigh.

“Sansa, stop this and look at me.”

I don’t feel like doing it but I gather my courage and look down on him. I’m surprised to find a blend of different emotions on his face; a hard set to his mouth and jaws, yes, but a soft look to his eyes. How can he manage that?

“Did it go well with your sister?” His tone of voice is neutral.

“Quite well actually. We cried a lot and told each other everything. We even laughed.”

Seeing my smile of joy and excitement softens a bit the set to this mouth and I stand before him, fitting myself between his spread legs and putting my hands on his shoulders.

“Please Sandor... Try to be understanding about Arya; try to be more patient and gentle.”

His shoulders tense under my hands and I still keep them there, even though his face turns surly again and he growls.

“You ask this of me, knowing me as you do? Fucking hell. It’s her who hates me and cannot stand me, not I.”

I knead his shoulders gently, touch strands of his lank black hair and he lets out a big sigh as he puts his arms around my waist and crushes me, taking the breath out of me. I feel his hot breath on my stomach.

“I’ll try it little bird, for you. What is most important to me now is that you’ve regained your health. I couldn’t stand to see you suffer like this.”

I squirm under the hard embrace and he loosens his arms, letting me go. I escape to the sitting room without looking back. It’s in moments like these that I question myself about my motivations in touching him and getting this close. While I know that in part it’s to soften him – and it works - that it is also an expression of my affectionate nature; it’s the other part, which is murkier that I wonder about. It’s like I’m playing, feeling a thrill at how keenly he reacts to my touch, feeling excited by these contacts, and then getting scared when he reacts too intensely, like the little girl that I still am.

“The captain has asked us to share supper with him in his cabin. Do you feel well enough to go?”

I’m excited about it, knowing that it’s an honour to be guests at the captain’s table, and the first meal that I’ll have since having started the crossing. I can see that Sandor is not; probably as Arya and Jaqen will be there.

And as we are sitting all together around the table, I can understand his misgivings. We form such a disparate lot, and I feel a lot of tension at the table, between Arya and Sandor, and then Sandor again and Jaqen H’gard. Of this I don’t understand, as they just have met today.

Although the good natured captain tries to lighten the atmosphere, it doesn’t happen; there is a lot that cannot be spoken of between us, and we end up in two camps: Sandor who’s sitting next to me, speaks with the captain, while I divide my attention between Arya on my right and Jaqen in front of me.

This is a most fascinating and enigmatic man, and I marvel at how handsome he is. His hair colouring is unusual, and he has told me that it’s typical for the inhabitants of Lorath, one of the Free Cities. Even if he smiles a lot, I sense that he is as unsociable as Sandor, feeling how guarded he is. I am enchanted with his strange way of speaking, although his cultured accent and voice intimidate me; it doesn’t take me long to feel as awkward and foolish like I did at King’s Landing. I don’t know what to say, and I have lost my skills at artificial chatter a long time ago. What does one say to a Faceless Man? Thankfully, Arya pipes in often, reminiscing about their travels, and he completes some tales with her. As I watch their interactions together, I sense that she trusts this man and is fond of him. _He must be a good man then._ She seems more animated and at ease since our talk of the afternoon.

As we leave after the meal, I end up being alone with Jaqen outside the door, and I take a deep breath to fortify myself.

“Jaqen...” It feels so strange to call a stranger by his given name, but I can’t give him a title that he doesn’t have. ”I wanted to thank you for bringing Arya to me, and for having protected her. “

He inclines his head graciously for a moment, and when he raises it again, I find it hard to meet his gaze, the eyes pale gray and large, with an unfathomable glint in them.

“A man is honored to have been asked and to have met Lady Stark.”

I nod slightly and feel the heat on my cheeks as he keeps his gaze unwavering on me. I turn around to see if Sandor and Arya are coming out, getting more and more flustered by the second. If at least he would say something... Trying to be courteous, I return my gaze to him, finding the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

“A lady has fear of a man. It doesn’t need to be so.”

I feel mortified by his words. As usual, I haven’t been able to hide my feelings. I know that this day has overwhelmed me and I feel vulnerable and defenceless from it, unable to take on more. Then, without saying anything, I flee from his presence and ascend the stairs as fast as possible, hearing him chuckle. I feel immense relief as I close the door to our cabin behind me, leaning on it and catching my breath.

I rummage through the chest to find a nightdress and bring it with me to the privy. Finding as usual a bucket of water there and clean cloths, I dip one in the water and put it on my face to cool it down. I dip a cup in it and drink slowly of the cool, luscious water. It feels so good to be able to so without feeling that dreadful sickness! I change into my nightdress and leave the pile of clothes outside the door, where the cabin boy will fetch them in the morning.

I just have time to get into the bed before I hear the door opening and spy Sandor tall silhouette coming in. It has startled me for no reason that I can fathom and I feel my cheeks flushing once again as he looks at me with a scowl, making me shrink against the headboard. His gaze circles the room suspiciously, as he was looking for something, and when he doesn’t find it, he snorts.

“Where were you?”

“Well... here my lord.” The sound of my tremulous voice angers me somehow, as I have nothing to be guilty of, so I raise my chin defiantly. “What about you? You took a long time coming out of the captain’s cabin.”

“Trying to make peace with you sister, as you asked. Didn’t work. Stubborn as a mule she is.”

Like you, I’d like to add, but I remain wisely silent. He’s come near the bed and is removing his boots and tunic. As usual, I can’t help but marvel at the breadth of his shoulders and his hard muscled chest and middle, brown and covered by black hair, his knotted big arms. With his face averted from mine, he asks in a deceptively soft tone of voice: “Did you speak long with the Lorathi?”

“Actually no. I just felt it needed to give him my thanks for keeping Arya safe. I feel somewhat ... uneasy around him, not comfortable at all.”

The he turns his face toward mine and smirks at me.

“Good.”

“What?” I’m indignant. “You think it’s good that I feel uncomfortable with him? Why?”

He glowers at me and doesn’t reply; just getting into the bed and turning his back on me, soon starting to snore. _How could he?_ I gaze at his big indifferent back in silent fury, wanting to strike him. His dismissal of me has hurt me. I think of Arya, of she never wanting to be with a man and marry, and I couldn’t agree more with her at the moment; it’s a trial enough having to endure the foul moods of this one. _No wonder I’m manipulative with him..._

Then I shoot a resentful glance at him, speaking silently to myself, in the space in my head where I can have permission to say anything that I want. It will take a very long time before I kiss you again, you beast... you _damned_ dog. Then I blow on the candle and try to sleep as peacefully as him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaqen H'ghar is different this time - I like to portray him in my stories in different lights and motivations.
> 
> A dream of mine, to watch a combat between Sandor Clegane and Jaqen H'ghar, to see who would win.


	9. Peace Again

**Sandor**

 

I must admit that I committed a childish and petty act the other night in pretending to fall asleep right away and snore. But I have paid for it dearly, as she has acted haughty and cool toward me since then. _The Lady Stark..._ I remember with a pang that period of easiness between us, when we travelled on the road and in the woods. We would be close together on the horse all day long, and after our supper, we would lean against a tree and sit companionably beside one another, her shoulder brushing my arm, speaking without effort. I had grown used to that closeness and missed it badly now.

I had remained silent because I hadn’t wanted her to see how jealous and vulnerable I had felt. She had enough power over me already without knowing that, without me _grovelling..._ I often feel with her like a ship bobbing at sea, the waves and currents her moods against which I’m helpless.

Naturally, as soon as Sansa and Jaqen went out on the deck, Arya had attacked me with her long held resentment about my killing Mycas, the butcher boy whose death had had such an impact on our travelling cortege so long ago; resulting in the killing of Sansa’s beloved direwolf, the spoiling of her bond with Joffrey, serious disagreements between Cersei, Robert and Ned Stark.

As I had realised in my dreams of the alternate lives, some patterns are meant to endure. I listened to her with as much patience as I could, and then replied.

“You don’t seem to realise that I had to do it. True or not, he was judged as having tried to kill the prince, and that’s a crime punishable by death. Being the prince’s dog, I had to be the one to catch and kill him. Didn’t mean because I laughed that I had enjoyed it. It was all part of the mummer’s farce. And you? What do you intend to do with your little sword? Keep it as an ornament or use it?”

“I only used it to defend myself, not to kill defenceless, helpless boys!”

“There’s a responsibility and weight that comes with having a sword. It’s not for child’s play, there’s always a price to pay for using it. In a way, I had to defend myself too on that night. If I had refused to go after the boy, it would have been I being hunted down by my men. Life always hangs by a thread even for a feared warrior.”

She had left in a huff to go back to her cabin. I was the only one left in front of Thoren’s doorstep, Sansa and Jaqen having disappeared, hence my black mood. I had wondered if echoes of this exchange between Arya Start and I were being repeated endlessly in the other lives. However, _there was a good reason for it._ It was one my few killings which had left me with a bitter taste of burned ashes in my mouth. But a warrior cannot admit to anybody that kind of weakness.

So I’m left now with few pleasures. The only thing which has given me satisfaction these last few days has been my training with Booka. We have managed to find an empty storage room on the upper deck, and practice every morning at dawn. He had been right about our clear memories of the previous training stayed with us, and we still hear in our heads the eunuch’s teachings and words. I feel less foolish now about the meditation part; I’m getting really good at emptying my mind of all thoughts, feeling the complete release of all tensions, worries, wants and desires. Stranger had told us that when we would reach a certain level of mastery, we would be able to reach that state in a few seconds. While I wasn’t certain what had compelled me to continue this training - whether Jaqen’s presence or the unknown which awaited us in the Summer Isles – I enjoyed honing my new skills.

*******

One early morning after training, as I sponge myself off with a cloth and put back on my tunic, I spy his approaching figure from the way he seems to glide on the deck and the first sun’s rays making the dark red in his hair flame. Booka has seen him too, and as he goes off to leave for the hold he snorts at him, which make Jaqen laugh. I’m always surprised as how laughing gives a boyish and free quality to his face. _Does Sansa like that?_

He’s leaning as usual on the rail, having regained his slightly haughty expression. I gaze at him with my usual surly one.

“While you denied it, I still believe that I’m your target. Someone sent you from King’s Landing, didn’t they?”

“If that had been the case, the Hound would already have been dead.”

Now I understand in part why I resent him. However different we are, we think alike. His insufferable arrogance is a reflection of my own.

“Westerosi men are not match against Eastern men,” he adds disdainfully.

I remember Arya’s telling me all about him, his skills, telling me how great he was, that he would be able to kill me with only his little finger. I had laughed at this taunt and she has left once again in a fury. Our taste for killing came from a different source. He was an assassin and I was a warrior. While his love of killing came from coldness, mine came from hatred and anger. He had great mastery over his emotions, while the focus of my anger was lethal. Where he is stealth and grace, I am brutal strength and power. Which could win?

“Try this one then.”

“The Hound saw what happened on the other day. The man and the Hound are two halves of one part, completing each other.”

I sigh regretfully. “I know. We could make great allies. Too bad now that you have your eye on the lady, my lady.”

Before he bows his head, I see a fleeting look of sadness fill his eyes. “A man is bewitched.”

I snort dismissively. “You faceless men know about magic. Unbewitch yourself then.”

He laughs bitterly. “A man cannot use magic against a natural feeling. The effect would only be temporary. Most unexpected this was. Plans were broken. But a man has a proposition for the Hound. A trade.”

“Oh?”

“A man can teach the Hound about changing his face and appearance at will. He could make his scars disappear, if he knew the way. Then he could lose them and have any woman that he wanted, for all of his living life. Except for this one.”

That would be a great gift indeed, stopping looking like half a monster. Maybe I would have jumped at this while being younger, before Winterfell.

“But I want only this one, and she isn’t repulsed by them. I hated them for a long time, but they have made me stronger, and while they could disappear, the pain that caused them never would. I don’t need a pretty face like yours.”

He shakes his head sigh. “The Hound makes everything so difficult. Most regretful for him and the man.”

He turns away and leaves. While I watch his retreating back, I feel like something stupendous has happened inside of me. I realise that I’ve finally started to accept my disfigurement... Some kind of peace has been made with it. While the memories of the pain will haunt me forever, the hatred against my brother has decreased considerably. I don’t think that I will ever forgive him for what he did to me, but I’m sensing that he doesn’t matter to me as much anymore; juts another monster that I’m happy to have left behind.

Later in the morning I spy Arya walking around the deck, her face stormy as usual, her little sword hanging from her belt. The other thorn in my skin... I beckon to her to come to me, and we walk together to the bench. She sits on it with a sullen look on her face.

“What do you want?” she asks ungraciously in her angry voice.

I try for a few moments of meditation, so I can empty my mind of the irritation that I feel around her. She’s too much like me, bristling, angry and hurting. While I’m not happy about her appearance in our lives, I know that she will be part of our household, a responsibility for me as I am the oldest of us, and I want things to be easier between us. We’ve been rubbing each other the wrong way, and I’m trying to figure out what I would have wanted at her age from an adult; understanding, certainly. Love she can have from her sister.

Now she’s looking at me with puzzled eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Breathing, girl. So I can remain calm. Do you think that you’re the only one who has lost her family, her home? I lost my mother and sister when I was younger than you, and never had a claim to our Keep as I was the younger son. Gregor got it all; the keep, the lands, the gold.” I look intently at her and point to my scar. “Do you know how I got this?”

Now I have her attention, and she shakes her head in negation. I tell her the tale as I had told her sister years ago, about my brother pushing the left side of my face in the brasero, the pain, the cover-up; how I had to leave home at twelve years of age to save my life and escape from my brother, my earlier years in training at the Lannister camps, my hatred and anger. How I had fought to survive, my love of killing. This is not what she had probably expected, and I watch the expression on her face change from sulkiness, horror, and understanding. After I have finished, she remains silent for once, bowing her head and reflecting.

“I know how you feel. Maybe it’s not too late for you. Don’t let the hate eat at your for years like it did for me; don’t let it become part of you. Lucky for you, you have your sister now again with you. And you can come to me when you feel it too much.”

When she raises her head and gazes at me, I see something in her face which she had always guarded before with a mask of toughness; pain and torment. Her big eyes are starting to glisten.

“When did it get better for you?”

When I met your sister.”

Drop of tears escape from her eyes and she gets up swiftly, scuttling fast to a hiding place on the ship. I let her go. A wounded animal has the right to lick its wound in a dark and peaceful place.

Later on the next day, I complete my duties and walk to Thoren’s cabin, as he had bid me in the afternoon to come so we could speak about ship’s business. When I come near the door, some instinct stays me, and I lean and look through the door’s window stealthily. I spy Thoren’s dozing on the divan, while Jaqen and Arya are sitting at his table, with Sansa between them. There’s a large map spread on it. Arya is stretching her neck to look while Sansa and Jaqen’s heads are close together. He points to different areas of it while her fingers follow the progress of his. She’s smiling and looking quite impressed every time that he opens his mouth to speak.

My body tenses and my vat of anger bubbles immediately. I grit my teeth as I open the door, announcing my presence, and let it slam sharper than I should. Sansa jumps at this, and for a moment I spy a glint of fear in her blue eyes. Jaqen looks up with a slightly mocking smile while Arya watches me with a guarded expression. Thoren continues to doze.

I stride to where Sansa is sitting and get up by tugging at her wrist roughly while she’s gazing at me with wide eyes.

“Ah, the Hound has come to claim his prize once again.” He drawls derisively. I ignore him and stride to the door, pulling her with me by having grasped her hand firmly. I stride rapidly to the bow, while she has almost to run behind me to keep up. She keeps protesting all of the way, and when we reach my secluded spot with the bench, I bend down, grabbing her behind the knees and around her shoulders, lifting her up while I laugh all the way to the bench. I sit down on it with her on my lap, and as much as she squirms to get away, the circle of my arms is too strong.

“Sandor, please stop! Let me go!”

I look up at her with a defiant smile. “Why? Still intent on sulking at me?”

“I don’t want to...”

“Stop!” I snap back in a harsher tone. “Settle down and look at the sunset, while I tell you a story.”

I know how she loves stories and songs, and this sparks a gleam of interest in her eyes. She stops struggling and waits with an eager expression.

“There was once a man who had a bird; not your kind but the singing kind. He had to leave on a journey and didn’t want to leave his bird unattended. He asked a friend of his to take care of it while he was gone, and the friend accepted. He put the cage with the bird on his table, and his dog came to lie down on the floor next to the table. The man noticed that every time the bird sang, the dog would keep very still, a blissful look to him. Except for his duties and needs, the dog would always lie down near the bird. Then one day, his friend came back, taking the bird home with him once again. The dog turned melancholic and went into decline, deteriorating fast. His friend had to bring back the bird again so the dog could get well.”

She has listened raptly to this, her lips slightly parted in wonderment. But when I finish, she looks down skeptically at me, a corner of her mouth struggling not to smile. I play with her long hair with soft fingers.

“From what I can see, you don’t look like you’re in decline, Hound.”

“I have to remain strong for when my bird decides to come back.”

She giggles shyly. “Oh, alright then! I forgive you, you great beast.”

“Prove it to me with a kiss.”

She blushes prettily. I have noticed that exposure from the sun has brought out a smattering of freckles on the top of her nose and cheeks. They look most enticing. She bends her neck and her face comes very close, her parted lips landing on my mouth and pressing against it in luscious little nibbles. But when I try to make it more, she refuses by wrenching away. I sigh in frustration through my teeth but don’t insist and she rests her cheek against the side of my head. We remain like this for a short moment, and then she squirms again.

“Sandor... I’m hungry.”

We walk back to the cabin, and I don’t try to take her hand, as my heart has sunk and my chest hurts. I don’t trust myself to do anything right now, as my mood is getting blacker and blacker. Just spying Jaqen look up at our entrance to the cabin with a smirk on his face makes my blood boil hotly with an urge to kill him right there. My fists clench tightly as I sit down and find my appetite gone.

 _I can’t take more of this._ It’s then that I decide to withdraw in myself, withdraw from everything that is not essential.

So we spend the other leg of the crossing like this. I notice that the men on the crew tread very carefully with me, like they’re sensing that if I’m provoked, a monster will erupt from its shell. That’s how I feel, like I have regressed to the way I was before, but I’m restraining the beast from inflicting unnecessary damage. It’s bad enough as it is. I had had a bad sense of premonition when I had first seen Jaqen look at Sansa, and I’ve been proven right. I know that I’m going to lose her, and I can’t do a thing about it. I know that whatever I do or say, that I’ll always lose in comparison with him, appearing even more rough and uncouth. _And uglier too._ So I do and say nothing.

On some nights, I get drunk, and spend the night in the hold with the men. I’ve badly wanted to have some bloody fight with someone but the black cloud which hovers around me scare off even the surliest ones. So at these moments, I throw my dagger repeatedly at the wooden board until my arm has no strength anymore. On some nights, when I sleep in the cabin, I wake up in the middle of the night to find the bed empty, and every time I find Arya, who has come in to sleep on the floor and Sansa has joined her with a blanket to give her sister some comfort.

What is ironic now is that Arya spends more time with me now than with Jaqen, following me around. Sometimes she asks me questions about sword fighting; sometimes she says nothing, her silent little presence oddly comforting. I had wondered about the sleeping arrangements in the cabin that she’s shared with Jaqen; I couldn’t imagine them sleeping together. She’d told me that since her numerous captures, she can’t sleep on a bed anymore, preferring the floor; thus why she crawls in our cabin to sleep on the floor there. And Sansa, the little lady unused to discomfort, endures it though love for her sister.

I often wonder bitterly why Sansa, who is nice and loving to Arya, courteous and considerate to the captain and Jaqen, can’t be like this to me. _Is it so hard?_ When she’s not smiling or speaking to them, I watch her face from afar, and find it often troubled and withdrawn; sometimes I see her crying, but I’ve kept my distance and have not interfered. Sometimes I spy the old look of fear in her eyes, and it makes me even more resentful, as I have folded the beast inside into quarters and eights as to spare her.

Once she’s asked me why I wouldn’t speak with her anymore and had become distant; I just snorted and walked away. She had showed her preference for Jaqen; so what did she want me to say?

I often see him walking with her, how careful he is with her, not showing his naked desire like he did on the first day, maintaining a respectful distance and always smiling. And he has reasons to smile, the treacherous snake. How I wish that he’d been seasick for the whole journey and stayed in his damned cabin; I wish that I had thrown him overboard while he was sick; but then of course I hadn’t known yet of his presence; I wish that I had tried to throw him overboard the other night when he had taunted me to do it. The hate that I felt for my brother has been transferred on him, and my jaws sometimes hurt because of my incessant teeth gnashing, which I do now regularly while I sleep.

And Jaqen doesn’t lose any opportunity to take jabs at me, especially at dawn when we train. He always seems to appear like some fucking demon at this time, standing with his arms crossed while he watches us. I’ve permitted Arya to join us, as she’s hungry to know more about fighting and I thought that it would help work off her anger too.

So one morning, after we’ve finished, he takes me asides for a moment.

“It seems that the Hound likes the Stark girls. But he’ll get only to keep one.”

“Is that so,” I reply in a disinterested tone.

“The Hound can only offer the other one a life of danger and discomfort which are unsuited to her nature. The man has wealth and a beautiful house in the Free Cities, where he can offer her a life of safety, pleasures and pampering.”

His words fall in like a knife in places already wounded; he seems to know of all of them. It takes all of my will not to react to this and as I hear a sound, I turn my head and see Arya, who has heard and is standing with eyes rounded with shock. _She hadn’t expected these kinds of words from the man she worshipped._ Maybe it’s what saves me from losing my head; maybe it’s the mental training of which I had felt an instinctive need for which is helping me now. I manage to stand still and gaze at him with unexpressive eyes until he stands defeated and goes away. Then I turn to Arya.

“That’s your lesson today girl. A pretty face can hide a viper and a vicious one takes a long time before showing its true nature.”

But still he persists in coming back, sometimes silent, sometimes taunting, and I can see that his behavior drives Arya away, without _I_ having had to do anything to tarnish her hero’s image.

One morning he brings back the situation at King’s Landing.

“A man knows why the Hound decided to leave with his tail between his legs. He was falling in disfavour, being replaced by a man _younger and quicker than he,_ and he stole this girl to salve his wounded pride. This girl who he’ll never be able to keep.”

My jaws tense but then something lights up in my mind and everything is clear now. I realise that I’ve unmasked another one of his formidable skills. He fights also with words and batters at the mind with them; these words eating at it and destroying confidence. His tongue is like a poisonous blade. While I’m not so good with words, mine being of the more brute intimidating kind, I have been able to survive repulsion from others throughout most of my existence, constant threats to my life in a merciless, hostile world, and it has made me not only strong of body but of mind too. So I smirk at him.

“Jaqen, if you were so confident of defeating me and taking Sansa from me, you wouldn’t need to try to poison me with your words and work so hard at it.”

I know that I’ve struck right when I see his face become livid with fury; a rare reaction from him from which I take malevolent joy. His mouth works silently and then he leaves in a huff. The tension that I was under drains so fast that my legs become weak and I have to sit down on the floor, breathing regularly to balance my body. Booka grins for the first time in a long while at me and Arya looks at me hopefully.

*******

I find out a few days before our arrival that I’ve made a tactical error in showing my hand to Jaqen; I should never have done that with an opponent who has had the upper hand all along, as it made me lose the little power which had been gained so painfully. And a faceless man doesn’t know of defeat or how to accept it.

On this day, Thoren has relieved me early from my duties, and I ascend the stairs to our cabin. Usually at this time of day, Arya and Sansa can be found here, either chattering or taking a nap. I find only Arya dozing on the floor at the foot of the bed. I start to have of feeling of uneasiness settling on me.

I return to the deck slowly circle the whole length of it, looking left and right into nooks, opening storage rooms, finding nothing. I descend to the hold and walk through it and as I had expected find nothing there either; I had already known for the attitude of the crew that nothing was amiss, as they look on my behavior with simple, naked puzzlement.

I return to the deck and look up at the doors to the two cabins, examining them from afar. Something looks different from Jaqen’s door, although I can’t put my finger on what is wrong. My heart starts pounding and I take the stairs two at a time. When I reach it and am standing in front of it, some kind of dread seizes me and I almost feel like fleeing, sensing that something there could well destroy me. Nevertheless, another equally strong feeling compels me to look through the glass, and I discover right away what seemed odd. A high chest has been pushed against the door, and its top can be glimpsed through the glass.

I lean and stretch to see through the glass. The layout of this cabin has a mirror layout from mine; the divan is on the opposite wall. Sansa is lying down on it, with a glass cup with some green liquid in it, still held in her hand; Jaqen H’gard is on his knees next to her, and removes it from her hand, putting it further away on the floor. Then he leans down, his hands caressing her hair, moving down to her shoulders, her breast, her waist and hips. I see her arms coming up around his neck, and while I can’t see because his long hair has fallen to cover the side of this face, I know that they are kissing from the movements of his head.

The vat of anger bubbles then boils so furiously that it overflows out of me like dragon’s breath, making me huff and growl. To think that she’s kissing him the same way that she did me fills my inside with the harshness of lye. If he thinks that a locked door and a chest will keep me from entering...

I start hitting the door with a shoulder and kicking it mightily with my boots like a hammer that won’t stop while images swirl through my head. Such thunderous noise I make... I remember the green night when I had left her in her chamber unharmed, and I think that this time I won’t spare her, this treacherous, lying little bitch who made me lower down my guard and start to trust her by seducing me with her sweetness and kisses. _She even said that she cared about me..._ Then she had met someone better and had turned her guiles on him, using her false innocence to lure him.

The fucking door is resistant, but nothing will make me stop until it breaks down. I’m going mad, as I’m hearing myself grunt and sob; feeling my face covered in sweat and tears. Then suddenly I feel a sense of something being wrong, that all is not what it appears to be, and I stop for a moment. Some understanding is dawning on me; all my latest observations of her coalesce in something clearer and true in my head. I had been bothered by the too nice behavior that she had exhibited lately, especially with Jaqen, and in a flash I see that this was only a repetition of how she was at King’s Landing, being so polite and docile because that’s the way she reacts when deeply afraid of people. Blinded by my jealousy and anger, I had failed to understand this. This galvanises me to redouble my efforts.

The door finally cracks and I give it a great kick. Part of it falls down sideways and I shove it away along with the chest, which I push down further away. Then I lunge through and see Sansa standing up and unsteady, her face white with terror. I must look like a savage beast again. Jaqen is up too, facing me from across the room, his hand grasping her to him. But she struggles and bites his hand, surprising him. She starts running for the opening and some instinct makes me push her down as she reaches me. As I crouch down over her, I hear a whistle and a knife embeds itself on the wall above, where our bodies were a moment ago. Sansa crawls out from under me out of the cabin while sobbing. I turn around and lunge at him, catching him by the legs and making both of us go down. The dagger appears in my hand and plunges down his chest before he has time to make a movement. I hear a great liquid sighing, and then no more.

I sit down on my haunches and look down at him, as something strange happens. Sorrow engulfs me for having done this to the man who had been a great friend in another life. I feel drawn to touch his forehead briefly and close his now sightless grey eyes. _Farewell, Jaqen. I regret that it had to be this way._ I wipe down my wet face with my tunic.

Then I get up and walk to the spot on the wall where the knife is buried, where we had stood close together for a brief moment. I stand alongside it and discover that it’s too low for me and was meant for Sansa. He, smirking at my possessiveness, has been willing to kill her to deprive me of her, as he had known from her reaction that he couldn’t have her himself; dragging me down with him in a well of bitterness and loss. And I couldn’t judge him, as I wasn’t better: I’d wanted to kill her too in my madness and furor.

That is a lot to ponder on. I need to rest a bit on the stairs to assimilate this and let the hate flow out of me. The monster inside of me, the Hound, who was born in the heat of the brasero and who had helped me survive and become strong is also a foe, feeding on the wounds inside, keeping them festering. He takes over the rest of me and is hard to control – he wants to hurt the little bird too. And he’s too much a part of me to be confined – _and at the same time I need him too._

After a few minutes, I discover that there a lot of the men on the deck watching me, including the captain, with worry and faces drained of colour. I put up a hand tiredly.

“It’s over now. She was in danger. Someone needs a burial at sea. Let me take care of it later.”

Without waiting for any kind of response, I get up and walk to the other door, which I find naturally locked against me. The little she wolf runs to it, her face clear through the glass, her expression fierce.

“Let me in now girl.”

“No!”

“I’ll not harm her. I give you my word. You know me by now; know that I don’t lie.”

I seem to wait for the longest time; then her expression clears and the door is miraculously open to me. I come in gratefully and carefully. I look down at her.

“Arya, I want you to go down to the captain’s cabin and stay there. I need to speak with your sister. I’ll explain later what happened, the truth of it.”

She nods and leaves, going down the stair quickly.

I find her huddled on the divan; she has stopped crying. Her blue eyes get huge as she sees me approaching, and she shrinks back in its corner. I take care to sit not too close. I let out a big sigh.

“Don’t fret little bird, I’m not angry.”

She’s trembling and this makes me sad, that she’s been hurt and betrayed again.

“But why are you not angry? After what I’ve done?”

“I know what happened. You’re not guilty, except for being innocent and young. Remember that. What was that green drink?”

“I... I don’t know. He didn’t say. I never had it before. It tasted wonderful though and didn’t burn like wine or spirits, but I started to feel strange after the glass was half empty, like I was under some kind of spell. Why?”

My teeth grit and I have to keep my hands from clenching. “You were right in thinking this, because it contained a drug; a drug to make you compliant to his advances.”

She gasps at this, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle it. The silent tears glide down her face. “That’s why! I felt compelled to... embrace him ... to let him ... It was so strong! There was a part of me that didn’t want this; the real part of me, but it was like I was drowning in it. A lady like me... doesn’t give herself so frivolously.”

I let her cry without getting closer or trying to touch her; partly to give her room, partly because I feel so unsure now of how to behave around her. And I feel that she needs to speak more.

“Sandor... I had felt so angry with you, I felt hurt. And this man... This is so hard... I felt drawn to this man at first, because he was handsome and courteous, but later I felt repulsed by him. I was never comfortable with him, not knowing why but still being scared. I couldn’t escape him, he was always there; and you know how I am... too obedient, feeling compelled to be polite, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I felt troubled, lost... And you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I’m so ashamed... Is it wrong to say these things to you?”

I don’t need to ponder this one. “No. You are being honest. I appreciate that. But if you felt so scared, why didn’t you come to me with this?”

“Because you wouldn’t speak to me,” she answers in a tremulous tone of voice.

“Why didn’t you speak with the captain then?”

Both of us had looked away from the other as we spoke. But when she raises her voice, a rare occurrence for her, my head snaps back. “I didn’t think of doing this, because I was afraid that he wouldn’t care about it; that nobody would care about what happened to me like at the Red Keep! That’s why!”

“Seven hells...” I close my eyes under the intensity of my feelings, my heart beating fast. As I raise my head to gaze at her, I find her blue eyes fixed on me, so large, glistening and hurt. “I wouldn’t speak to you because I felt ... too upset... with your being distant and always being with Jaqen. I had to hide in myself to bear it. I didn’t want to make you scared of me again. Ever since you’ve first touched my face in the godswood, I’ve felt unhinged. Then your kisses ... I thought that you did it because you felt forced to give me something in return.”

“No!” I ...

A knock at the door cuts off her words. I growl. As much I would want to ignore it, I can’t as there is the matter of a certain body to deal with.

“Damnation...”

I get up to greet the visitor, opening the door to Booka and Thoren. They both look shocked and spooked.

“Dog, you have to come right away,” says Thoren in an urgent tone of voice.

“Why? I said that I would deal with it. I’ll pay for the fucking door too. Can’t it wait?”

“No.” Now I notice that they both shaking, these men who are always calm, and this awaken my attention. What can be worse than a bloody corpse? I turn back to look at Sansa.

“I’ll only be a short while. Wait for me.”

When I got out, I find Booka and Thoren standing beside the broken door to the other cabin. Their eyes are round as they spy me and we enter silently with I leading the way. Something totally unexpected stops me in my tracks: there is no body and no blood on the floor; no trace of what went on except for the overturned chest and my dagger on the floor. I kneel in front of it and pick it up. It’s shining as if no blood had been spilled on it minutes ago. Shivers course on my skin. I put my palm on the floor where Jaqen was lying down, as if I could feel some warmth, a lingering wetness of blood. Nothing... I look up at them in bewilderment.

“I had put one of the men to stand guard until you came back. He never left his post. Nobody saw anything. Before I came to get you, I had a strange feeling and took a peek inside. He was gone.”

“Magic...” whispers Booka.

They both blow out loud breaths and are shaking their heads. I can’t offer them any explanation. I sheathe my dagger and get up and we leave the cabin. Outside, I ask Thoren if he can keep Arya in his cabin tonight. He nods his assent, and they both go down the stairs, and I gaze at their retreating backs for a moment, reflecting.

I know that Faceless Men can change their appearance at will; but can they create it from thin air? What was he? A deity, a spirit who had come down to our world to partake of the experience of humans, only to become caught up and entangled in it as badly as us?

*******

When I return to the cabin, I find Sansa in her nightdress, already in bed with her head propped up on the pillow. While she seems less upset, she’s looking very small and vulnerable under the covers. I remove my boots and my tunic, sitting on her side of the bed, gazing at her.

“Sandor...” she asks hesitantly after a few minutes. “Did you kill him?”

I take a deep breath but keep my gaze fixed on her. “I had to, pretty thing. When I pushed you down on the floor, it was on instinct, to protect you. I knew he would throw his knife. It’s embedded in the wall. Then I killed him.”

I feel sorry that I can’t offer her something better than this bleakness. Thankfully, she doesn’t ask for whom the knife was meant, as she probably thinks it was for me, his opponent and adversary. She doesn’t need to know more.

“You thought that I ... preferred him over you, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And we both know that I forced you to come with me.”

She sighs, inclining her head and joining her hands together like a child. “True. I didn’t want it at first, but you have been good and respectful to me. You’re not devious and a liar like the others. I know you; know that I can trust you.”

I nod curtly to hide my shame. _If you only knew how dangerous I can be to you...But she does know, after the night of the Blackwater battle, and yet she still trusts me..._ I’m a violent man, only used to battles, mistrust, anger – my hands have wreaked so much destruction. Can I trust them not to crush a pretty little thing that has been entrusted to them? But that’s another little horror that I’ll keep to myself.

“I’d like you to be able to trust me too. I know that you think me still a child, but when I ... kissed you, it was a serious matter to me. As a lady, I don’t take these things lightly. Will you trust me?”

I find the intent and earnest expression on her face so endearing that I can’t help but chuckle and I touch her jaw with my knuckles briefly, feeling the tension loosening from my body and my mind.

“I’ll try.”

 _Easier said than done._ I don’t fucking know the way. But for the moment it’s alright; the poison has left me.

I get under the covers too, and soon feel Sansa coming closer, snuggling my back and putting an arm around my waist, holding tight. I take her hand and press it to my chest, its warmth and softness slowing my heartbeats down, filling me with a lightness of being.


	10. The Summer Islands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion to this second part in the Winds of Change series.
> 
> Part 3 will follow along. 
> 
> Many thanks to everybody who followed, left kudos and comments.

At midday of our docking at Lotus port, on the Island of Walano found the three of us in uncertain and subdued moods. The disappearance of Jaqen H’gard had left for both Arya and I with feelings of sorrow laced with betrayal. Arya had lost yet another friend that she trusted and felt close to; but this time it’s worse, as there was treachery to stain the bond and break her trust. As for Sansa, this must have felt like a kind of rape, being seduced against her will.  

We all needed some healing, a place to rest.

Thoren will stay docked in Lotus Port for a least a week; the ship has been battered by the storm and needs repairs; the crew wants rest and distractions and there’s the usual necessity of unloading and loading merchandise. He has told me that if we didn’t like it by the end of the week that we were welcome to travel again on the freighter to the Free Cities. This had made me feel better somehow as I didn’t know in what I had gotten us in wanting to live and settle here. While I had disliked a lot of things in Westeros, at least I knew of them and how to survive there. Here is the unknown...

I had some ideas in my mind of what to expect in this faraway and strange land: villages with rounded huts with thatched roofs, half naked people, pagan rites ... the expectations of a person who thinks that he’s coming from a more civilised world. But I’m proved wrong as we disembark and walk in the city. It is a real city, with a palace, rectangular wooden buildings with large opening for the circulation of the breeze, big wrap around balconies, eating and drinking places, inns, shops and brothels, all in the golden wood which comes from the goldenheart tree. The streets are lined with tall palm trees, and the people who stroll on them are mostly ebony skinned and dressed in vivid coloured clothing with lots of ornaments; everywhere are baskets and containers bursting with flowers.

Being obvious Westerosi by our dress and skin, we draw a lot of stares, but not in the way that I’m used to; expressing mostly curiosity, friendly interest and for Sansa frank admiration and surprise. She’s the exotic bird here... Most unusual of all is that nobody flinches and averts their gazes when they first see me; I only see gleams of respect in their eyes. I don’t know what to make of that.

Booka helps us find an inn not too far from the waterfront, where we partake of a meal in the dining room, which there is an outside area, on the big balcony, with tables on it and people already eating and drinking. We are brought grilled fish and vegetables and an astonish variety of fruits, with an amber wine which is a bit too sweet for my taste.

As we eat, the two girls remain silent but with brighter eyes looking at everything as they listen to Booka and I.

“Then you’re certain you’re not going back on the ship?”

“Yes, master Hound. I’ve seen enough of the world, and wish to settle down, find a mate and have my own family. I’ve missed the islands in the last year.”

“Where will you go?”

“To my house. It’s where my family is. It has It has spare chambers to accommodate family and visitors. You are welcome to stay there. But at first, we’ll have to go through the purification ritual.”

“All of us?”

“No, only males and warriors, both male and female need to go through it when they have been away for long or are foreigners.”

“I am one female warrior!” she exclaims triumphantly.

“Then you’ll go through with it.”

Arya’s eyes are sparkling with anticipation and excitement. I think that if it was up to her, we would leave right away for it.

Sansa has been silent through of all of this. As we drink after having finished out meal, I gaze at her with some worry, but she answers with a quiet smile which calms me.

Booka gets up and as she spies me getting up to he stays me with a hand.

“No Master Hound, continue enjoying yourselves. I have something to bring from the ship and I’ll be back shortly.”

Time passes quickly as we watch the going on of this street. For Sansa, discovering this city is like getting to know for the first time a big city; as in King’s Landing, the only times that she rode in it was on special occasions with a big cortege, and she never really knew of its nature. But for Arya and I, who roamed its streets look on with surprise at the way people are behaving; no one going on quickly about with eyes darting behind their shoulder to check if a thief is on their trail; no ragged children running on the street; they are all escorted by adults or elders. Arya gazes at me with astonished eyes.

“How can this be possible? When I ran away from the Keep and stayed on the streets, I was robbed of everything in my sleep; and once walking, a girl jumped on me and tried to remove my boots!”

“Seven hells, I agree; I’ve never heard of a town, even less of a city, with safe streets. It is most strange.”

Sansa grabs my arm suddenly, he gaze fixed on a figure which is slowly making its way toward us. It is tall black man, with a feathered cloak of many colours, a golden headdress on his head and a naked blade hanging from a belt at his hip. In this unfamiliar garb, stripped of his simple sailor’s garments, it takes me a few seconds to recognise him, and when I do, I gape at him. So do Arya and Sansa. The behavior of the people change too. As he approaches, people on the balcony and on the street get down on one knee, until we are the only ones left sitting on their seats, rooted by bewilderment.

I’m the first one to recover from the shock. “What is the meaning of this? Explain Booka.”

Everything about his has changed too; his stance, his smile which is now subdued, with a regality to it.

“I am Booka Xaolt, wayward prince of Lotus Port, returning to assume his duties finally.”

We’re speechless. A carriage with covered by colourful curtains is coming, drawn by two grey horses and led by two men in blue feathered cloaks. It stops before us, and Booka signals us to get on it with a hand gesture and slight bowing of his head. Sansa grips my hand and Arya takes hers; they are helped by the coachmen to enter its cool, comfortable interior with padded benches. The three of us are sitting on one bench while Booka faces us on the other. The horses start the carriage moving. This surprise, coupled with the strange intimacy that the curtains give us has created a sense of unreality, of dizziness of the mind.

“Why, Booka? Why have you worked as a simple sailor while being a prince?”

“Like I had told you, I wanted to visit the world, explore it. It is something that a lot of us do, through having merchant ships. While we’re far away from the known world, we do not want off be cut off from it; and for me as a future leader, I had to bring a broader experience for my people.”

“But... you called me master, let me order you... Why didn’t you tell?”

He chuckles. “It would have made the experience false, and you would have treated me differently. You and I shared enjoyment and fun, you taught me things; it was the only time in my life that I was to be so free.”He sighs regretfully but then a spark of mischievousness gleams in his eyes. “But we can still have this when we’re alone.”

While all of this is a lot to take on, I feel that is lightening the heavy cloud that the three of us had been under, providing welcome distraction.

When the carriage stops and we get off, I discover that we’ve arrived at the gates of the palace. It is a structure similar to the others, rectangular and wide with wrap around balconies, but much bigger and with each level getting smaller until the last one has the size of a single big room.

Booka is standing, facing us.

“Welcome, Sandor Clegane of Westeros, and Ladies Stark of Winterfell to my home, as my esteemed guests.”

The guards at the gate get on their knees, and as we make our way to the inside, we are greeted by new guards and introduced to all of them. In the large entry hall, another man arrives, dressed differently and from his look and bearing a head steward of some kind. He too gets down on one knee and the introductions are made once again.

“Welcome, prince Xaolt and esteemed guests.”

“Is the hut ready?”

“It is, prince.”

Another man joins us shortly; the head priest, Jambala, to take us to the hut. I hesitate, gazing on at Sansa who’s looking lost and uncertain with the steward. Booka inclines his head.

“Have no fear, Sandor. She will be brought to your quarters here, where she will be able to take a bath, aided by servants, and rest until your return. She will be safe.”

I look questionably at Sansa and she gives me a simple nod of assent. The steward leaves with her on the right side, to a stairway, while Jambala leads us straight on, through a maze of halls. Our slow pace gives me the time to observe how different it is from the Red Keep. While the Keep was sumptuous and dark, this castle is light, with many patterned quilted big pieces hung on the walls, similar to our coverlets but much more elaborate and colourful.

Booka has seen me look at them. ‘The tradition of these comes from long ago Westerosi visitors, who taught us how to make them. But having no need of them for our beds, we hung them on the walls as prized possessions, with patterns and messages important to us sewn into them.”

We arrive at the courtyard, a huge square filled with a great abundance of trees, plants and flowers, much of which are unknown to me. It is very fragrant and lush. At the deepest parts appear small rounded huts with thatched roofs, with their entrances covered by a colourful curtain. Jambala brings us to the one in the middle and lifts the curtain to allow us a glimpse of the inside. It is like dusk in it, with a few lamps to light up the simple space. It is stifling inside, with heated rocks, and bucket of water which he throws on the rocks to make the water rise in clouds of steam.

“You’ll strip down and out your clothing outside of the hut.”

“What?” I exclaim indignantly. “Not with the girl inside with us, surely?”

Jambala gazes at Booka with a puzzled frown, clearly not understanding my resistance. “What is the difficulty for him?”

Booka replies solemnly: “In Westeros, there is a separation of the genders. Men and women never get undressed before each other except for mating. They are made uncomfortable by nakedness.”

Jambala is shaking his head incredulously. “What a strange land, my prince. It’s a wonder they still manage to procreate.” He turns his head toward me. “There is no shame for us about our bodies and their functions. Children know all about them at an early age, and are familiar with their body parts and how they will develop in adulthood.”

Arya pipes in proudly. “I too am like this! When I was a prisoner bound for Harrenhal, I saw men piss on the road, and once I had to relieve myself among them, or I would have wet my pants. That’s when they discovered I was a girl. It is nothing for me.”

If I could known what she was going to say, I would have shut her up. For a girl to speak like this! She’s more of a widling than a lady. But Jambala and Booka look unconcerned and are nodding sagely. I really don’t understand this.

“We have communal places for the body functions in the towns,” say Jambala. “Men and women relieve themselves side by side while continuing their conversations.”

“What!” now I’m bellowing. “Have you no sense of modesty, of privacy? This is madness.”

Jambala continues gazing at me calmly, unfazed by my outburst. “As we put less layers of clothing on our bodies, we also put less layers of distance between us. We do not fear being close to one another.”

I’m rendered speechless and feel strangely vulnerable and beaten. So we undress then, and when we are done, Jambala gazes at me approvingly.

“What is there to be ashamed of? You are a fine specimen of a man, although a bit hairy. For a Westerosi, you’re very well endowed; you don’t have a little white worm like most of them do.”

I really don’t like being appraised like this as if I were a horse. “How do you know about Westerosi men? Have you ever seen one before?” I ask sarcastically.

“I’ve seen enough,” he says with authority. “Now, inside.”

We each take our place on a rock. Arya, who I won’t even dare to look at, is giggling and Booka is enjoying a quiet chuckle. I’m feeling quite out of sorts and frustration is rumbling in me.

“Why didn’t you tell me of this before, Booka? What else should I know?”

“We are so different in our customs. You never really saw it before because I had adapted to yours, however strange and restraining I found them.”

I see that he has a point. I have to give him that. _It is I now who will have to adapt. If I stay, about which I’m now harboring serious doubts now._ To think that I had complained all of my life about hypocrisy and senseless rules, and here I am on my first days in a new land, defending the way of being which I was protesting against. I am a product of where I came for, whether I like it or not. Some values have rooted themselves very deep, while I had been unaware of it.

And I had thought that I was a worldly man, even a debauched one, and now I feel for the first time in my life embarrassed and mortified. I feel like clinging to these narrow views, which seem safer and comforting in my shocked state. To my eyes, these islanders seem to be degenerate and pagan. The freedom that Booka had spoken of is not what I had envisaged. What have I done in coming here?”

I feel Booka’s gaze on me, calm and serene, and as if he’s sensing my bewilderment, he says: “Sandor, give yourself some time to get used to this.”

I find his words oddly calming, but I still need to retort. “If, and I say if, I decide to live here, my house will have a privy, even if I have to dig it out with my own hands!”

“No need for this, “ Booka replies amiably. “We’ll help with this too. You are free to do as you wish. Wear your armor all the time, dress in layers from head to toe, it doesn’t matter to us.”

There is no way to get into a fight, and I let go. I find that after a few hours of steaming and keeping quiet that it starts to feel natural. Once in a while one of Jambala’s assistant comes in to replace stones and throw bucket of water on them, the fragrance of herbs soothing to mind and senses. Then Booka turns his head to Arya.

“Please my lady, I need now to speak to the Hound in private. One of Jambala’s assistants will bring to your quarters.”

From the look of relief on her face, I think that she’s had enough of the heat and steam. She leaves quietly while I avert my gaze from her naked little figure.

It makes him laugh to see me reacting like this and I scowl at him. Prince or not, he’s still Booka to me, and we are two men alone in a hut. Then he turns serious and gazes at me with his liquid brown eyes.

“I have a proposition for you, my friend. I’ll have a lot of things to organise to make them mine, and I would like you to be my war chief.”

This was not the end for surprises, and it takes me unaware again.

“Are you mad? I’m a foreigner here, I don’t know your ways!”

“Doesn’t matter. You know how to fight. Throughout the lives that we’ve shared, I had all the time needed to know you and assess your skills. I couldn’t have a fiercer or stronger chief. And you bring the new eastern skills. You could train my armies in them. This would give me a great advantage over the others in the Islands.”

I have to bring up the matters which have stung me for so long now. “I want you to remember what some said about me at court. That I would be replaced by this Osmund Kettleblack because he was younger and quicker.”

He flings his hand as if flatting a fly away. “This is of no concern to me. Some spiteful tongues surely. I’ve never seen a better fighter than you.”

“Also remember that I left the court, and kidnapped Lady Stark, a ward of that court.”

“Men have stolen away a woman before you. What is important to me is that while you despised your king, you never harmed or betrayed him, keeping to your vows; that you had sworn to protect him.”

It was true. I still had protected him, in spite of my conflict about him having Sansa mistreated by him. While it speaks of loyalty, I’m not sure if I’m proud of this. I sigh deeply and look up at him.

“I give you a week to think about it; until captain’s Thoren ship leaves. In the meantime, you’ll reside in your quarters here; be free to come and go as you want. If you decide to stay, you’ll have a house of your own on the grounds, with enough room for you, the ladies and servants. And with a new privy built in.”

“But no rum and some red sour wine.” We both laugh at this.

Once we get out of the hut and feel the evening’s cool breeze on us, I find that I’ve never felt this clean before. Maybe this cleansing has managed to purify even me.

The evening meal is served in our quarters, which consist of two chambers opening to a dining and sitting room area. I’ve told both Sansa and Arya about the prince’s proposition; that we could think about it in the meantime, and see how we adapted to this land.

The walls of our chamber are painted in a vivid pink, and I find that the printed coverlet is as thin as the sheet underneath it. A large netted opening has colourful curtains floating in the soft breeze, the furniture is dark and ornate, with weaved baskets to store our clothing in. The spicy smell of flowers comes in regular wafts.

I’m the first to slide in, while Sansa is standing at the window opening, looking in the courtyard which has been lighted with torches. She has a light green nightdress one and is barefoot. Her fiery hair cascades down her back in soft curls.

“What are you thinking about, little bird? You’ve not spoken much.”

She lets go of the curtain and turns around. “It’s just that so much has happened. I feel overwhelmed. All of this looks wonderful, I’m afraid to believe in it.”

She wouldn’t have thought like this before. Experience has made her mistrustful; it is sad. “Give yourself some time then to see if it’s good or not. I for once have good feelings. A people who take good care of their young must not be so bad.”

“If it’s such a nice place, why doesn’t everybody come to live here?”

“Because it’s too far from the centers of power.”

That seems to satisfy her for the moment. She gets into the bed too, blowing out on the candle. This bed is bigger than what we’re used to, giving both us of us plenty of room, but still I feel her moving closer, resting her head on the side of my arm. A lump forms in my throat and I let out a big sigh, like if I had been holding my breath since I had thought her lost to Jaqen. Maybe there’s hope for us to become closer like before.

The next days are spent exploring. One day, as we ride on a road down the coast, we can’t help but marvel at the untouched beauty of the beaches; white sand, clear blue water, all bordered by huge palm trees. We find clusters of houses, a small town and a lot of unspoiled tropical forests perched on high cliffs. Booka has told me that there has been almost no native fauna here, except for lizards, monkeys and inoffensive insects; the why of meat being absent from their tables. This will take time to get used to.

We visit the markets and shops in the city, view intricately printed fabrics; walk down the streets which are nicer, cleaner that what we’ve known. I’ve left the armor and mail in our chamber; what’s the use of being overprotected in such peacefulness? Although the walls which surround the palace and the city prove that we’re still in the land of men, battle and wars...

I stand out so much here by being the barbarian I am in both looks and manners; dressed in dark grey and black clothes. I’ve been told by Jambala that their people are not repulsed by my horrendous burns, as they see these scars as a mark of strength at having gone through the trial of fire. They look on Sansa with reverence; her white skin, blue eyes and red hair represent for them an otherworldly being, descended from the northern sky. The people here are mostly courteous and considerate, looking at us directly. This too will take time to get used to.

After the week has passed, we all agree to stay on. In spite of our mistrust, we are all beguiled by this island. Arya has found her place here, with female warriors being as natural here as male warriors. She won’t have to fight against her true tendencies. I can see that Sansa feels already much safer and that she’ll be able to blossom here fully. She wants to learn the music, the songs and the crafts of the native women. As for me, I’ll still be part of a court once again, and while I think that the people here are gentler, courts are always a nest for plotting, the fight for power and riches; I’ve been part of the councils and have sensed this, of course. I know the duties that I’ll be the most comfortable with will be with the warriors; proving myself to them, training them in the eastern practices and leading them. Whatever the colour, I know how to deal with a pack of tough men. And maybe this time I’ve finally met a prince who I can respect; my old friend Booka... While I too find this all too good to be true, I’m comforted in knowing that I still have a sizeable stash of gold, and if events turn sour, we can always leave by one of the numerous ships which dock often in the harbor.

I find it difficult to say goodbye to Thoren once again. He says that he will be there next year, but with the changeful nature of life and the long distances that he has to cross on endless seas make it an uncertain prospect for me. My other friend....whom I’ve paid from the broken door of the cabin and who has paid the rest of my wages in red wine, tea and coffea.

Prince Booka has had our house refurbished with a new privy, furniture of our choosing and a maid and cook. It is large and airy, and while being quite different, reminds me in its size and layout of the house by the sea in Yin that we had in the other lifetime. It too is situated near the sea, near the end of the extensive grounds of the palace. We’ll be able to once watch again the sunsets and sunrises from its large wrap around balcony. This too must be an enduring pattern, one long fixed by the fates for us.

Life is not so awful after all.

One day, I decide to take Sansa to a waterfall in the woods, which is about one hour by horse riding. We visit the market to find clothing suitable for swimming, and the sellers laugh at us for wanting to swim dressed up. I settle on my lighter britches for this, and we find for Sansa a short sleeveless dress with short pants.

Later on, there will be a feast for the return of the prince, and I’ve thought of dressing in full fighting gear, and Sansa has a silk dress elaborate enough which she’ll wear with its matching headscarf, in the manner of the desert people, with some of the jewels that she brought with her from King’s Landing. Once again, she’ll meet highborns, and I hope that this time the experience will be less bitter.

I’ve followed the directions and the waterfall is easy to find by its roar. I tie my new horse, Storm, to a tree and take from the saddlebags a quilt for laying on the ground and big gauzy pieces of cloth for drying.

We sit a first on the quilt, awed by the beauty of the waterfall, the bubbling lake and the lush green surroundings. All around us, as everywhere on the island is the heady fragrance of ginger flowers, the singing of birds. I stand up and help get up with a hand, leading her to the lake.

“Let’s go in the water!”

She hesitates, looking at the surface doubtfully. “Do you think that it’s deep?”

“Let’s find out.”

She resists my tugging at her arm, looking flustered. “No! I don’t know how to swim. Lakes at Winterfell had always been too cold to go in, even in summer. Do you?”

I grin. “All dogs know how to swim. I could teach you.”

“I’m very grateful, my lord, but not today.”

“Let me lead you, and I’ll stop when it gets deep.”

It takes some coaxing, with holding her hand while I enter the water, and she follows reluctantly. I remember having said to her that everything scared her, and it’s still true. I find this endearing, and I like being the strong one who’ll protect her while taming her fears. So I laugh while she advances cautiously, and she smiles a little. But when the water is starting to reach her shoulders, she balks and retreats to where it’s shallower, sitting near the shore with water lapping at her chest. She watches me while I immerge myself underwater, swimming and splashing around like a playful dog, throwing water at her until she gets up and escapes to the quilt.

I come out from the water drenched and dripping, and as I sit down next to her I sponge off and rub my head, as my lank and straight hair is even thinner when wet, uncovering too much of my massive scar. Sansa had tried to blot off the excess water on her dress, but it’s still very wet. I can help but leer at the way the fabric clings to her curves, as she never wears gowns this revealing, my eyes roving on them hungrily. She catches me at it, and her arms cross themselves protectively over her breasts. I lower my gaze and sigh.

“Sansa... Don’t be scared. I’ll not force you.”

She lowers her arms slowly; her cheeks are flushing and her eyes look big and vulnerable.

“I’m sorry... It’s an instinct.”

“A good one too. We can go right now, if that’s what you want. Nothing will happen.”

Our gazes lock; mine transfixed on her blue eyes, their expression changing from fear, uncertainty, tenderness, resolve and finally determination. Lifting her bottom off the quilt, she removes the short pants from underneath the dress, unlaces the dress and takes it off too. This has taken me completely unaware and I’m rooted to my spot, my eyes widening. Her breasts swing free from their restraints, heavy and full with large pink nipples; her small waist blooming into a rounded belly and curvy hips, her limbs long and delicate. Her legs are crossed modestly over one another, almost hiding the copper triangle at the apex of her thighs.

When a ghost of a shy smile appears on her mouth, I gasp and come closer, although with careful moves, not wanting to give in my impulse to ravage and possess. With light hands I stroke her hair and ear, looking intently at her; caress her shoulders and arms until their slight trembling has stopped. I lean down to find her mouth while she puts her arms around my shoulders, bringing me closer. Her lips part and a silky tongue slides into my mouth and starts the dance with mine, circling it. I moan deeply and let my hands take her breasts, kneading and stroking them, feeling the nipples hardening against my palms. I lay her down on the quilt, kneeling between her thighs, feeling lightheaded and shaking hard from my need. I suckle hard on the rosy nipples, which grow huge in my mouth; I grasp her waist and hips while my mouth kisses a trail down her torso, belly until I reach the triangle. She has put a hand protectively over her womanhood, and I tug at it gently to remove it.

“Ssshhh, I’ll not harm you.”

Going gently, I put my hands under her bottom to lift it, burying my face in the voluptuous folds already lush with honey. I sniff deeply of the heady smell, a blend of both earthy and sharp scents like in a forest. I lick and taste greedily, my mouth wide open to get it all. She whimpers and sighs softly. When I raise my head, I can’t contain myself anymore. Supporting my weight on my elbows, I adjust my body between her legs, tense my hips and get in with a swift stroke to lessen her pain by making quick. She arches her back against it and I look in her face with an anxious gaze. There’s only a bit of fear on it, and I stay still until her features relax again and she gets used to the feel of my hard part in her. I move in slow strokes, but even at this speed the sensations in my manhood get so unbearable that it doesn’t last as long as I had wished and my release comes with such piercing pleasure that I grunt loudly.

I roll off to release her from my weight and we lie down on our sides facing each other. We just rest together like this, silently, my eyes gazing in the deep blue pools of hers, vulnerable with little tears spiking the long lashes. I kiss them softly.

“Sandor... I’m surprised that you were so gentle.” she says in wonderment. “Thank you.”

Her eyes gaze at me lovingly. I would like to answer, say something, but words can’t come through my chocked throat. I’m still trembling from the intensity of my feelings and press her head against my chest. I never expected that this would happen between us; a girl who flinched from me on our first meeting, her constant fear only matched by my constant anger and obsession. I would like to say that since the unbelievable happened, she being willing to give herself to me; the least I could have done was to treasure this and restrain the beast in me.

My hands play with the hair down her back, feeling the silkiness of it, the smooth skin underneath it, the swell of her hips, while she puts her arms around me. My hand goes lower, cupping and caressing her round buttocks, a finger sinking in the valley which separates them and stroking it up and down. My heart starts to pound again, my lower belly hollowing with want. I’m so hard that that it feels painful. I feel my face tensing from the intensity of my need, my gaze intent. I roll her around on her back again.

“Please,” I beg in a rasp.

She’s smiling at me. This time it’s easier, as she’s more relaxed and slick with my seed, and she opens her thighs wider to let me in. She puts her arms around my neck and kisses me again and again in a wilder way with her lips and tongue, making me frantic and desperate with want. My strokes are faster now and she rolls her hips in a slow, languorous manner, moaning and calling out my name, inflaming me even more, and I move more roughly, my fingers threading in her hair, the pleasure coming in a hot, painful surge, moving in rings throughout my body and limbs, making my chest constrict and my eyes sting.

I break out in loud sobs. She pushes at me so we both roll down our sides again, and embraces me. I bury my ugly face between her plush breasts while the tears flow. It doesn’t seem to trouble her, this crying. My body shakes against hers as I feel the calm and soothing touch of her hands as they stroke my back and shoulders, while sobs wrench out of me like from a damned soul. Finally, this comfort which I hadn’t known before the need for reaches me, and I calm down gradually.

Stretching her arm, she takes one the cloths and blots off my face gently – it feels strange having her do it to me this time.

“Little bird, what have you done to me?”

We lie down on our sides again, my chin resting on the crown of her head. I’m bewildered, feeling strangely vulnerable, defenceless, like the little boy that I was a long time ago. I had never imagined that Sansa would be so free and warm; having instead anticipated more fear and reticence from her, like I had thought a reserved little maiden like her would act.

I should be happy about it, but I’m not; I’m feeling uneasy; I remember Jaqen’s words. Maybe he spoke the truth; why such a beautiful girl should ever want me? And already so good at kissing and fucking, even though she’s young and inexperienced. _A gift too beautiful and great for me..._ And what would have happened if I had not been released from my duties so soon and not broke through his door? Would she have been as giving with him? Just the thought of it makes my blood boil, awakening something raw and possessive in me; making me mad with hate. Doubts chase themselves endlessly in my mind like wounded animals panicking, while my arms have pressed her against me like bars of steel. I only realise what I’ve been doing as she starts to struggle against me, eyes rolling in fear and panting.

“Please stop, Sandor! I can’t breathe and you’re hurting me.”

The anger drains out of me at these words – these words which she has uttered so many times to me – I loosen my hold, and as soon as she’s free of it, she sits up, trying to cover herself with one of the big cloths, looking flustered and scared. I feel the stinging of remorse at having let once again the madness take me, and have to close my eyes, lying down on my back and letting out a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, little bird. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that my feelings were too strong. Fuck it, I cry every time that you give me what I want. It hurts me.”

Puzzlement is chasing the fear from her face, and being the nice, kind little girl that she is, she puts a soothing hand on my shoulder, looking at me with compassion in her limpid, blue eyes.

“But why, Sandor?”

“I’m a beast, a killer, full of anger and mistrust. It’s all I’ve known in my life. When you’re kind and sweet to me, it breaks up my armor. It hurts there, in my chest,” I add, pointing in the direction of my heart. “This love I feel for you, it makes me crazed.”

I can see that she doesn’t fully comprehend, as although she’s gone through a lot of pain and hardship in the last years, she’s still too young for them to have hardened her; but whether she understands or not is not important; her innate goodness and compassion are the reason why I’ve always been able to tell her important things I had never said to anyone before.

She listens and takes time reflecting before speaking again. “But it has also made you kinder. This part of you, the goodness in you that I’ve always felt despite your lashing at me, this kindness that you showed to me, is what made me care about you, while your fierceness has made me feel safer than with anyone else. Maybe both parts will learn to live more peacefully in you.”

I was wrong... She understands all too well. This woman child keeps surprising me all the time.

She points at her chest too. “I also have conflicting parts in me. I’m sure that both of us will become more trustful in time. We’re still young, you know.”

I can’t help but laugh at this solemn statement. What a sweet child she is! She answers with a smile and as I sit up, getting behind her and encircling her shoulders with my arms. I rest my cheek against her head and her hands come up to clasp my forearms. I lean down my head to her neck to kiss her neck with my teeth grazing her skin. My eyes catch a tantalising glimpse of breasts, belly and thigh. I feel myself growing hard and my hands are itching to touch them again, but I remain still. _Enough._ _She has been generous enough to allow me a second fuck;_ anymore and I’ll risk overwhelming her with my greediness and have her withdraw from me because of it. It’s like she was made to make me lose my mind; her hair, her face, that luminous skin, her smell, and now that lush womanly body. I had never been this ravenous before with a woman. But then, I’d never been in love either.

I find that it’s enough to calm me down, this closeness, and the tenderness of it.

I’m looking forward to this feast tonight, for us to be introduced by my prince friend to his court; this court where this time she’ll be mine openly.

Also, I’ll have to speak to Jambala to see if they have moon tea here or something similar. I think that Sansa is too young to bear children yet; I want her to be carefree and lighthearted, to heal from these years at King’s Landing, to enjoy her youth.

*******

**Sansa**

I spoke truly when I had told Sandor that I too had conflicted parts in me.

I had the strangest dream in when I was seasick, some parts vividly detailed, in a blur of colour and confusion. Of all things, I had dreamt that I was a courtesan in the Free Cities. _The Hound and I had escaped from King’s Landing and boarded Thoren’s freighter. While docking at Astapor, I had foolishly disobeyed his instructions about always staying at his side, and I had been snatched away, to be brought to sumptuous brothel. Being a beautiful northern girl, I had been a great prize, and had been trained in the art of pleasure. I had felt desperate and revolted at first; but because of my high value, I had been very well treated, and my trainers had been quite skilled at my training, causing me to lose my long held fears and rigid upbringing. I had started to enjoy these pleasures..._

So that why at our first joining I had felt almost free of fear, having had the realistic experience of losing my maidenhead in the dream to help me tolerate it in my real life. And of course I had remembered everything that I was taught - it had come naturally to me, as well as for kissing.

It had been hard at first after having has this dream; it had contained everything which was considered sinful and improper in my lady’s upbringing, and while in the dream I had matured, in real I had not – I had to deal with it in my still girlish state. Jaqen’s presence on the ship had made everything more complicated. While still being inexperienced and innocent, because of the dream I had been able to recognise his being enamored with me, the desire that he had tried to hide from me but that I could feel coming off in waves from him. And I had felt drawn to him – but just because he was handsome and compelling. All of this had deeply troubled me and had made me more distant from Sandor, as a way to protect myself from my confusion and reconcile the conflicts raging in me.

I knew though that Sandor was the man who would fulfill me. I had felt it on the first time that I had kissed him on the road. The danger to his life and the threat of his disappearing again made me realise and accept that this man had become important to me, regardless of his harshness, bad temper and scars. It had emboldened me to rush into his arms to show and seal this acceptance. It had awakened something fiery which only burned with him. In the King Landing’s years, while I had felt safest when he was there, creating a strong unnamed feeling toward him - at the same time the way he scared me had kept that feeling stunted, unable to grow. It had changed when he had helped me escape and had become gentler with me.

But Sandor is not ready to believe this yet. Having led a hard life of duty, of being an object of repulsion from his scars has made him deeply mistrustful, especially of getting what he really wants. So I’ll give him time and let him grow into it while I too can grow into believing that my desires of the flesh are not a sin, as these islanders have believed in all of their lives.

*******

I’m afraid that two joinings for my first time had been a bit excessive for me.

Thankfully, we had time before the reception for a bath and a leisurely nap. I had fallen asleep as soon has my head had rested on the pillow against Sandor’s arm. For once, I had woken up before and hearing his snoring had made me giggle, thus awakening him and he had laughed too.

Upon our formal introduction at court, I had felt nervous and scared, surrounded by highborns again, court guards, warriors, ladies; afraid of not being accepted again, and thus of repeating the same mistakes; of being too eager to please, of becoming clumsy and artificial. But Sandor had felt my fear and had clasped my hand, calming me.

As we sat down to the feast, I had winced, as my woman parts had felt swollen and sore and I had to lower myself down slowly on the seat. Sandor had noticed it and had looked at me with a smile playing at one corner of his mouth. To cover my embarrassment, I had said:

“What about you, Hound? You seem fine.”

He had smiled wryly and whispered in my ear. “Except that it burns like hell to make water and that the fabric of my britches is chafing me, I feel fine.”

I had giggled spontaneously and a bit loudly and when I had heard conversations stop at our table, I had put my hand on my mouth hastily, feeling mortified. But the people had only smiled in response at my joy and I had felt so relieved and happy at this. I had discovered that while I had been raised with all the proper manners, it had felt so stifling to be rigid and prim, so joyless for a smile or a laugh to be considered an offense.

Sandor has insisted on holding my hand throughout the meal, but unfortunately I’m left handed and clumsy with my right one.

I have hope that this time it will go better.

Having being given my freedom back and having lived with a lot of sorrow for years, I feel a need for amusement, for lightheartness. I have started being friends with several women who are teaching me their crafts and arts, music and singing. I love the way their songs are so different from those I knew in my other life: no lying songs about deeds, gallantry or nobility, but songs about sorrow, joy, pleasures with true emotions.

I also have a special friend, a beautiful older woman who is a confident and who is reconciling me with accepting my true nature as a woman, that while I’m reserved and calm in temperament, I’m passionate in the ways of the flesh. What has helped is that words like slut and wanton don’t exist in the islanders tongue. And she has said that with red hair like I have that I couldn’t help but have a fiery nature.

In my taming of the Hound, I’ve also wanted us to feel lighthearted too. When we are alone in our house, I tease him and then pretend to run away, squealing with delight when he pursues me and catches me, growling. We roll around on the bed in a mock fight where I pretend to be a maiden in distress and beg him for mercy. We run on the beach at end of the palace’s grounds, playing in the water. I’ve even learned to swim; the Hound has been a patient teacher, helping melt my fears and trust my body in the water.

I think that Arya is healing too; while I don’t understand her wanting to be a warrior, I accept it and often watch her practicing. She has lost the haunted look in her eyes. While she and Sandor are often like two dogs sniffing around each other suspiciously, she has come to make her peace with him and accept his authority over her, like a father figure.

We often manage to have informal times with prince Booka in his quarters, where he becomes once again the simple and good natured fellow who we had known.

Westeros and the North seem so far away now from these islands of the south. I don’t know who’s still fighting these wars and who will claim the Iron Throne. I only care about Winterfell, the lost castle of my childhood, who has claimed it – who will. Maybe Arya will someday return to Westeros and will try to claim it as the rightful heir. For my part, I prefer to remember it as it was before King Robert’s visit; untouched and full of life, filled with the people I had grown up with, my brothers, my sisters and beloved parents, when we were safe and happy.

 


End file.
